The Fate of Countermagic

[ChemEng]

Way to oversimplify the current Standard. I would argue that CHK-RAV (with Coldsnap towards the end) T2 was one of the most skill-intensive and varied formats in the history of the game. If you seriously think that combat was the only (or even the most important) skill in that Standard environment, you are horribly mistaken.

All the T2 Ive played in the last year and a half has been that way. Lay a dude. Remove potential blockers and swing until I can drop 6cc spell. Its that way for EVERY deck in the format. Heartbeat does play differently.

Removing Counterspell not only gives R&D more room to design other counters, as others have mentioned, but it also makes deck construction more difficult (and thus skill-intensive). It's a lot harder to go "DARH SIXTEEN COUNTERS AND A LITTLE REMOVAL, MY DECK BEATS THE ENTIRE FORMAT NOW LOLOL" in a format with an unconditional UU Counterspell effective at every stage of the game.

That deck was around already. And it wasnt unbeatable. In fact, it played a crucial role in BALANCING the environment at the time.

Why not? How are they any different? Just because Heartbeat's combo win is on turn five or six instead of two or three? This is a completely subjective statement that doesn't even really make any sense.

Heartbeat plays very 1 dimensionally. Transmute into bunch of untaps and burn/Maga. Thats it. How many different fronts does PitchLong or any other Eternal combo deck attack? Thats the point that I am comparing. If you enjoy playing 1 dimensional combo games, then by all means.

First of all, it is completely untrue that you can tell who will win a Standard game by what's in play on turn two. Also, even if that was the case, how is that any better than in Vintage, where the games sometimes don't even GET to turn two? Why is it okay for you to oversimplify T2 to "I had more/better guys on the table on turn two, I win," but not okay to simplify Vintage to "I drew more restricted cards than you, and you don't have a Force of Will, so I win?" Is this Standard environment less-skill testing and/or "swingy" just because lucky topdecks are more subtle than HAHA ROFL I RIPPED WILL GG?

I would disagree with you here. Most Type2 degenerates to turn 1 play 1cc 2power dude. turn 2 drop another dude/generate tempo. If you arent there by the end of the second turn, then the tables are VERY much against you. There are decks that dont follow this template, but >80% do.

They can say that Counterspell is bad for the game all they want, but in that environment it would be perfectly balanced.

is one of the most stupid statements I've ever heard.

Its hard to imagine there was ever a healthy environment with counterspell legal the way that some of these people talk.

Instead of reprinting the powerful cards themselves, they are strapping old ones them onto the most unstable and unreliable mechanic in the game -- a creature or even worse on a spell that doesnt even get played when you play it.

That was a mistype on my part. Corrected now. Thanks for the catch. I certainly didnt think that ACall or Lotus or Jar should be reprinted. In fact I said as much in my post. Thanks for reading.

I'm fairly sure that Standard is better off without cards like Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, and Memory Jar as printed. If you want to play with those cards, we already have a very good format called Vintage for that. R&D doesn't need to reprint Counterspell for you to play Vintage. And, as far as the "negative power creep" that you seem to believe is taking place - if it actually was, how do you explain the printing of cards in the past couple blocks that have had significant effects on Vintage (most notably Gifts Ungiven, Dark Confidant, and Jotun Grunt), the mighty format with the power nine, Tinker, and Yawgmoth's Will?

You think that printing 1 card per block for Vintage is negating the "negative power creep" from standard? Not hardly...

[ChemEng]

Here's the cheesy answer.  Counterspell keeps other counters from being printed.

Im tired of this response. Wasnt Force of Will and Mana Drain printed while Counterspell was legal?

Not to mention the other counters that were printed while Counterspell was legal:
Memory Lapse
Dismiss
Dissipate
Forbid
Mana Leak

There are many arguments against having Counterspell in the environment, but just because it challenges the R&D team to find new and interesting ones should not be an option. Thats forcing them to do their jobs.

[Moxlotus]

I like the current T2.  I like that it's wide open (imagine Tooth and Nail versus U/x if the blue decks had Counterspell), and that creatures are good again.  I think it's awesome to battle cards like Keiga, Meloku and Wildfire.  Counterspell would take all that away.

See, now I don't like that.  I loved Mirage/Tempest Type 2.  I liked the undercosted, aggressive dudes in THREE colors (red, black, white).  I liked the mono blue control or U/R control decks doing something before turn 4.  I don't like the current "play huge 7 cost dude, gg" environment of Type 2.

Just like there are tons of viable archetypes now, there was then too.  Red, White, and Black beatdown decks.  Mono blue and Counter Phoenix, Donais 5c Control for control decks.  Prosbloom as the combo deck.  Living Death and Dancing Gnomes for reanimation decks.  Surivival-Rec, 5 color Green and 5 color black for midrange decks.

I wouldn't say things were any worse or overpowered then.  It's a matter of environment.  Obviously Mana Drain is overpowered in Type 2, but in Vintage its not.  An environment can be balanced at high or low casting costs.  Its just a matter of making sure all the decks can run on the same casting costs.  Right now its high.  In Mirage/Tempest it was low.

[Roxas]

All the T2 Ive played in the last year and a half has been that way. Lay a dude. Remove potential blockers and swing until I can drop 6cc spell. Its that way for EVERY deck in the format. Heartbeat does play differently.

Vore. URTron. Solar Flare. Bob-Counterbalance. Not too far back, there were Jushi Blue and Ideal as well. This is a very healthy number of non-aggro decks. Also, you didn't even get the oversimplification of the aggro decks right - it's "turn one guy, turn two guy, turn three guy(s), turn four Jitte + equip." I'm not going to lie, Jitte made things a little stupid, but for the reasons you claim to dislike T2 - it often made the guy who devoted more to the table lose the game.

That deck was around already. And it wasnt unbeatable. In fact, it played a crucial role in BALANCING the environment at the time.

As Orlove said, this is only because other cards were too broken and probably should not have been printed.

Heartbeat plays very 1 dimensionally. Transmute into bunch of untaps and burn/Maga. Thats it. How many different fronts does PitchLong or any other Eternal combo deck attack? Thats the point that I am comparing. If you enjoy playing 1 dimensional combo games, then by all means.

"PitchLong plays very one-dimensionally. Play some tutors and Tendrils. That's it." Nice try, buddy.

I would disagree with you here. Most Type2 degenerates to turn 1 play 1cc 2power dude. turn 2 drop another dude/generate tempo. If you arent there by the end of the second turn, then the tables are VERY much against you. There are decks that dont follow this template, but >80% do.

See above.

Its hard to imagine there was ever a healthy environment with counterspell legal the way that some of these people talk.

Again, see above, and what Orlove said. Also, do you seriously think Counterspell would have been anywhere NEAR balanced in CHK-RAV-CSP Standard?

That was a mistype on my part. Corrected now. Thanks for the catch. I certainly didnt think that ACall or Lotus or Jar should be reprinted. In fact I said as much in my post. Thanks for reading.

So what do you want? "I don't want broken cards, but I don't want non-broken cards."

You think that printing 1 card per block for Vintage is negating the "negative power creep" from standard? Not hardly...

Yes, I do, because any newly-printed cards have to compete the power nine, Yawgmoth's Will, and other cards created before R&D knew what they were doing. A small handful of cards per block being Vintage-playable is a sign that negative power creep is not taking place, since every set ever printed outside of those in Urza block and Mirrodin block only have a handful of Vintage-playable cards.

Not to mention the other counters that were printed while Counterspell was legal:
Memory Lapse
Dismiss
Dissipate
Forbid
Mana Leak

Look at how many decent and/or interesting counters they were able to print due to the absence of Counterspell in Standard - Hinder, Voidslime, Remand, Rune Snag, Spell Snare, and Assert Authority + Override back in Mirrodin. This is more than enough cards that serve Counterspell's purpose without having one that was good in just about every situation after the blue player's first turn every game.

I like the current T2.  I like that it's wide open (imagine Tooth and Nail versus U/x if the blue decks had Counterspell), and that creatures are good again.  I think it's awesome to battle cards like Keiga, Meloku and Wildfire.  Counterspell would take all that away.

See, now I don't like that.  I loved Mirage/Tempest Type 2.  I liked the undercosted, aggressive dudes in THREE colors (red, black, white).  I liked the mono blue control or U/R control decks doing something before turn 4.  I don't like the current "play huge 7 cost dude, gg" environment of Type 2.

Just like there are tons of viable archetypes now, there was then too.  Red, White, and Black beatdown decks.  Mono blue and Counter Phoenix, Donais 5c Control for control decks.  Prosbloom as the combo deck.  Living Death and Dancing Gnomes for reanimation decks.  Surivival-Rec, 5 color Green and 5 color black for midrange decks.

I wouldn't say things were any worse or overpowered then.  It's a matter of environment.  Obviously Mana Drain is overpowered in Type 2, but in Vintage its not.  An environment can be balanced at high or low casting costs.  Its just a matter of making sure all the decks can run on the same casting costs.  Right now its high.  In Mirage/Tempest it was low.

Really, though, how much different is "Play 7 cost dude, GG" from "Tinker or Will, GG?" Also, while there was a varied and balanced environment in the Mirage/Rath cycles, many of the cards printed in that era have long been considered "too good." R&D cannot seriously be expected to constantly keep printing cards at that power level without devastating power creep issues. It's also nice that you don't need to skip over every card with a converted mana cost higher than four when you look through spoilers evaluating cards. While you are partially correct in saying that "an environment can be balanced at high or low casting costs," it's still not necessarily true - in T2 right now, cards anywhere from one mana (Isamaru, Spell Snare, Shock) all the way up to seven (Simic Sky Swallower, Enduring Ideal) are potentially viable, which allows for a lot more variety than formats in which you are limited to cards that cost three or less, and cards with higher costs only playable with overpowered acceleration.

[Matt]

Im tired of this response. Wasnt Force of Will and Mana Drain printed while Counterspell was legal?
Not to mention the other counters that were printed while Counterspell was legal:
Memory Lapse
Dismiss
Dissipate
Forbid
Mana Leak

You've COMPLETELY missed the point. All the time they were printing good counters and Counterspell, blue was utterly dominant. The only times, from the restriction of Black Vise in 1996 to the printing of Scourge, when the best deck wasn't blue or blue/x was when something phenomenally powerful was loose, like Necro or Jar. Part of weakening blue was putting a cap on the number of strong counters in a format at one time, and part of that was removing Counterspell from the basic set so they could keep making more new cards.

Which is their job.

[Anusien]

Not reprinting Counterspell will kill Magic

Reprinting Counterspell will kill Magic

Let's first establish criteria for health of a format:
1) Number of different decks that are viable
2) Number of different strategies that are viable
3) How balanced are the colors?
4) How balanced are the strategies
5) Is any card or synergy warping the format?
6) How long do games go on

My thoughts:
The more decks and strategies that are viable, the better.  If there is a non-format distorting combo deck, that is a sign of health of the format.  Doubly so if you can choose from a large number of deck types/strategies (so Pontiff and BWx Control as different strategies, ditto on Tron, UWx Control, Zoo, Sea Stompy, etc etc)
If colors are balanced, a format is healthy.  This is also tied with #2, since a color imbalance forces a strategy imbalance.
If the strategies are balanced, the format will be better.  As in, play combo or lose is bad, but "You can play control, aggro or combo depending on matchups and still do well" is good
Is Affinity around?

The last one is the real controversial one.  I think we can all agree that games less than four turns are unhealthy.  It is my theory that if games have a decent shot of going to double-digits, a format is healthy.  If decks are regularly going to 15 turns per player, it suggests that fast decks cannot compete, but if a deck cannot reasonably (possibly) stall until turn 7-9 or even 10, it means that aggressive decks are too strong.  In part, this is where the 6-drops come in.  If Keiga is a reliable turn 6 play, I think that it speaks well to the health of a format.


Establish criteria, then claim whether Cspell makes them better or worse.

[Machinus]

Not reprinting Counterspell will kill Magic

Reprinting Counterspell will kill Magic

Neither of those is related to my discussion topic. In fact, they are both wrong because they ignore the premise of my discussion, which is that R&D has freedom to guide the development of magic without adversely affecting its popularity. Apparently, this means that older players that really enjoyed Tempest-like environments are an insignificant minority, and R&D basically disagrees with them completely.

[dandan]

The only reason counterspell was merely very strong for most of its career was that Wizards honestly had no idea what they were doing up until Invasion or so. Tempest and Saga block were full of outrageously broken/undercosted cards. When you can play Survival of the Fittest or Cursed Scroll before your opponent has UU up, Counterspell loses a lot of potency. But Scroll and Survival are hilariously overpowered, and when you remove such cards from the environment, you start to see how strong Counterspell actually is.

Quoted for extreme truth.

In any case, soft counters do a good job of countering small stuff early on and large stuff later on.

Note that Red had Lightning Bolt neutered as did Black with Ritual. For years these cards were seen as strong but not wrong. Counterspell has had its backside covered by the printing of Mana Drain, as that for UU was clearly wrong so its sidekick Counterspell seemed OK in comparison.

Having said that, they could have easily tagged on a tiny, tiny advantage (such as 'costs 1 less to play if played in your main phase' or cycling 3 or Flashback 7UU [OK, I play Type 4]) just to sweeten the taste of this bitter pill, just as they did with Incinerate/Bolt.

[Matt]

Having said that, they could have easily tagged on a tiny, tiny advantage (such as 'costs 1 less to play if played in your main phase' or cycling 3 or Flashback 7UU [OK, I play Type 4]) just to sweeten the taste of this bitter pill, just as they did with Incinerate/Bolt.

They already did, and named it Hinder. Isn't it obvious they're only printing this to move it to the base set, probably in the Rewind slot?

[Machinus]

Cancel does not fit into the plan of "opening up design space for new counterspells." Effectively, it's a permanent decrease in the power level of countermagic as well as a decrease in the amount of room available for new counters. The design issue was probably true back in Odyssey, but I don't think it is as relevant now.

[unknown.root]

Alright so a lot of people think that a 2cc hard counter is too much for standard. Time has shown that soft counters, (ie. Mana Leak) are too week to fill such roll, however if there was a drawback to a hard counter at two mana, couldn't that be the right push for wizards.

example:
UU
Counter target spell. You lose 2 life.

or
1U
Counter target spell. Discard a card.

If wizards would print something in middle of both parties of the fence then this might be less of an issue. Since they havn't we have this great problem for Type 2. Either solution will upset the other side, wizards can't afford to lose X amount of people just to make Y percent of them "happier."  I enjoyed the control mirror, sure it may not be the just of the game, but i always thought that the blue mages should be on even grounds with the other colors in the beginning of the game. This won't happen until something changes, with current card pool. Maybe wizards should poll players on what they want (find some way to control the results) and react as such. Another option is reprint counterspell, and if it's too much ban the card from standard. I maybe be rambling, i've been up way to many hours now but felt like i should chime in on this subject.

As far as me I have twenty unglued island and a playset of DCI counterspells waiting for them to be legal in standard for my return.

~Kevin

[jpmeyer]

But I'd rather play Remand/Mana Leak/Spell Snare than one of those counters, despite not being hard counters.

[Apollyon]

Not reprinting Counterspell will kill Magic

Reprinting Counterspell will kill Magic

Let's first establish criteria for health of a format:
1) Number of different decks that are viable
2) Number of different strategies that are viable
3) How balanced are the colors?
4) How balanced are the strategies
5) Is any card or synergy warping the format?
6) How long do games go on

My thoughts:
The more decks and strategies that are viable, the better.  If there is a non-format distorting combo deck, that is a sign of health of the format.  Doubly so if you can choose from a large number of deck types/strategies (so Pontiff and BWx Control as different strategies, ditto on Tron, UWx Control, Zoo, Sea Stompy, etc etc)
If colors are balanced, a format is healthy.  This is also tied with #2, since a color imbalance forces a strategy imbalance.
If the strategies are balanced, the format will be better.  As in, play combo or lose is bad, but "You can play control, aggro or combo depending on matchups and still do well" is good
Is Affinity around?

The last one is the real controversial one.  I think we can all agree that games less than four turns are unhealthy.  It is my theory that if games have a decent shot of going to double-digits, a format is healthy.  If decks are regularly going to 15 turns per player, it suggests that fast decks cannot compete, but if a deck cannot reasonably (possibly) stall until turn 7-9 or even 10, it means that aggressive decks are too strong.  In part, this is where the 6-drops come in.  If Keiga is a reliable turn 6 play, I think that it speaks well to the health of a format.


Establish criteria, then claim whether Cspell makes them better or worse.

Speaking strictly as the guy that's probably seen the most Standard tournaments over the course of the summer in this forum, Standard is the healthiest now than it has been since Invasion. There are a lot of viable decks:
Vore
Wildfire Tron
Other Tron
Frogs
Snakes
BW Aggro
Ghost Dad
Husk
GWB AggroControl
Heartbeat
Ideal
Angel Control
UW Control
RG Beats
Solar Flare
Owling Mine
And probably more that I'm missing.

Their strategic similarity ends at "deal as much damage to my opponent as they have life". There were no colors that you COULDN'T play. All of the Ravnica shocklands besides Blood Crypt saw play.

The format seemed really good, due to the fact that you needed to be a good player to win.

Alright so a lot of people think that a 2cc hard counter is too much for standard. Time has shown that soft counters, (ie. Mana Leak) are too week to fill such roll, however if there was a drawback to a hard counter at two mana, couldn't that be the right push for wizards.

Again, I've seen a lot of Standard action. Mana Leak was good in the overwhelming majority of turns in which the player had 1U mana available. Rune Snag is better than Mana Leak. Remand is really good because you can psuedo-Time Walk.

If wizards would print something in middle of both parties of the fence then this might be less of an issue. Since they havn't we have this great problem for Type 2. Either solution will upset the other side, wizards can't afford to lose X amount of people just to make Y percent of them "happier."  I enjoyed the control mirror, sure it may not be the just of the game, but i always thought that the blue mages should be on even grounds with the other colors in the beginning of the game. This won't happen until something changes, with current card pool. Maybe wizards should poll players on what they want (find some way to control the results) and react as such. Another option is reprint counterspell, and if it's too much ban the card from standard. I maybe be rambling, i've been up way to many hours now but felt like i should chime in on this subject.

Again, see Mana Leak, Hinder, Remand, etc. Blue has more options now for counters than it has had in some time. That leads to deckbuilding being an important skill, compared to the old days of "run lots of cheap dudes + Cursed Scroll. And Hatred if you are black" and "Run 16 counters, ways to draw cards and Disk."

Cancel does not fit into the plan of "opening up design space for new counterspells." Effectively, it's a permanent decrease in the power level of countermagic as well as a decrease in the amount of room available for new counters. The design issue was probably true back in Odyssey, but I don't think it is as relevant now.

Yes, it does. The Moxen not getting reprinted allowed for Wizards to print the following mana accelerants:
Mirage Diamonds
Invasion Cameos
Masques Parts of Ramos
Darksteel Ingot
Coldsteel Heart
Sol Grail
Signets
Time Spiral Totems

By not having stuff that you immediately start decklists with, you open up design space to allow different things to exist. While not all of the above list are highly playable, that list is certanly larger than the list of Moxen.

I'm fairly sure that Standard is better off without cards like Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, and Memory Jar as printed. If you want to play with those cards, we already have a very good format called Vintage for that. R&D doesn't need to reprint Counterspell for you to play Vintage. And, as far as the "negative power creep" that you seem to believe is taking place - if it actually was, how do you explain the printing of cards in the past couple blocks that have had significant effects on Vintage (most notably Gifts Ungiven, Dark Confidant, and Jotun Grunt), the mighty format with the power nine, Tinker, and Yawgmoth's Will?

You think that printing 1 card per block for Vintage is negating the "negative power creep" from standard? Not hardly...

Well, you have how many cards in Vintage? Over 8000? Adding a block of 800 (blocks usually aren't 800 cards) is just a 10% increase. It's even less if you consider that some of the cards are horrendously undercosted for their effects, so people start off decklists with them, such a Yawgmoth's Will. They'll never print anything nearly as good as Yawgmoth's Will ever again, so the additional 10% of cards in existence needs to fight with the rest of the existing cards for a slice of the 30-40 extra slots on the decklist.

Im tired of this response. Wasnt Force of Will and Mana Drain printed while Counterspell was legal?

Not to mention the other counters that were printed while Counterspell was legal:
Memory Lapse
Dismiss
Dissipate
Forbid
Mana Leak

There are many arguments against having Counterspell in the environment, but just because it challenges the R&D team to find new and interesting ones should not be an option. Thats forcing them to do their jobs.

Force of Will doesn't compete with Counterspell. Any sort of comparison between them is like going up to Barry Sanders and saying "You aren't too good of a running back because you suck at hockey."

Mana Drain is retardedly broken. It will never be reprinted because it's 3 broken effects in one.

Memory Lapse and Mana Leak are both soft counters. They both tend to be run in decks that already list 4x Counterspell on them.

Forbid was played because you could lock your opponent out of the game.

Dissipate and Dismiss were secondary counters that were only run because your decklist already started with "4x Counterspell, 4x Mana Leak".

[Machinus]

Cancel does not fit into the plan of "opening up design space for new counterspells." Effectively, it's a permanent decrease in the power level of countermagic as well as a decrease in the amount of room available for new counters. The design issue was probably true back in Odyssey, but I don't think it is as relevant now.

Yes, it does. The Moxen not getting reprinted allowed for Wizards to print the following mana accelerants:
Mirage Diamonds
Invasion Cameos
Masques Parts of Ramos
Darksteel Ingot
Coldsteel Heart
Sol Grail
Signets
Time Spiral Totems

By not having stuff that you immediately start decklists with, you open up design space to allow different things to exist. While not all of the above list are highly playable, that list is certanly larger than the list of Moxen.

What? Your post is irrelevant. Apparently it's about power level, which is unrelated to the issue at hand. By putting the standard counter in the base set, you decrease the amount of freedom for developing new cards that have a similar effect. That's pretty obvious, and it goes against the whole design space motivation.

[Vegeta2711]

I don't like the current "play huge 7 cost dude, gg" environment of Type 2.

I don't get this attitude at like all. Isn't the entire point of playing control to survive to the point where you can play better cards? Like seriously, the only difference between now and back then is control doesn't have the massively dominant drawing and counter engines to lock the game down while using crap like Shard Phoenix and Hammer of Borgadan to actually win the game.

All the T2 Ive played in the last year and a half has been that way. Lay a dude. Remove potential blockers and swing until I can drop 6cc spell. Its that way for EVERY deck in the format. Heartbeat does play differently.

Roxas covered this, but yeah, you're completely wrong and pretty ignorant of T2 play for the last year. That or apparently the five decks I was playing that had nothing to do with laying early drops and weren't Heartbeat were completely terrible and I didn't know.

Oh wait, that's right, Vore, Owl, Counterbalance and others are BETTER than the decks that 'lay a random dude'.

example:
UU
Counter target spell. You lose 2 life.

or
1U
Counter target spell. Discard a card.

If wizards would print something in middle of both parties of the fence then this might be less of an issue.

Um... they printed Remand. That's pretty much better than either of those cards by a long shot.

[Illissius]

Let's ignore Counterspell for a moment. Does anyone think Dissipate is overpowered? Because Cancel, and its likely reprinting in 10th, says "yes, yes it is". (Or have R&D gotten more lax about printing strictly superior versions of other cards than even I've realized? They did print the vanilla 2/1 for and then Pit Keeper in subsequent sets...)

[Jacob Orlove]

They're totally fine with having weaker and simpler versions of cards in the base set (especially at common/uncommon), and then printing the slightly better versions in expansions.

Look at how Loxodon Warhammer got upgraded to rare when they moved it to the base set, or how there are infinite random vanilla creatures that are just strictly worse than the alternatives (a 2/2 for 1W is worse than one that also sacrifices to kill an enchantment, etc etc).

[Darkenslight]

I think the problem is that we seem to be going off on a tangent.

Does Counterspell makes design more difficult?  Hell yes.  You then have to design Blue in such a way that U/nonU matchups don't become a total blowout in favour of the U player.

Could it be a reprint in future?  Perhaps, in a block where the critical turn is 2-3 and nothing else.  Is that kind of format likely?  Not really.  Yes, we have 2/2s for 2 and 1cc and conditional 2/3s for 1.  Still doesn't mean that counterspells can't exist in the same environment.

[wethepeople]

Without Counterspell you could do just about anything you want because your opponent would have no way to stop you, so if no one played disruption insane Combo decks with no protection would take over due to the fact they wont have to worry about a thing when going off.

There hasn't been Counterspell in Standard for years and, despite this, there hasn't been one insane Combo deck that has taken over due to the fact that it doesn't have to worry about a thing when it goes off.

I am refering to Vintage, i guess i missed the part where this was just about Type 2, which i still can't find.

[UR]

Counterspell in a current type two environment? NO. Just, no. Counterspell is always good. There would be absolutely no reason I can think of not to run that card in any deck that has blue in it. Right now all other counterspells can be debated;

- Remand doesn't solve a problem but delays it. If your deck isn't designed to take advantage of that, don't run it.
- Mana Leak is dead late-game.
- Rune Snag isn't always great in the early game and not guaranteed to be great late-game.
- Hinder/Cancel cost three so on the draw they will miss a whole lot of relevant early-game cards (even on the play it will miss Castigate, Watchwolf, Jitte, etc.etc.).
- Spell Snare is pretty narrow except in counterwars and against some aggro decks.
- Rewind is reasonable but expensive and there aren't a lot of instants that you can use to take advantage of the second ability.

Counterspell bypasses all these restrictions and just solves your problem. You won't have to think about what to run, you'll just run counterspell. Will it make other decks bad? Not necessarily because there are 56 other cards in your deck that will need to win the game for you, but you are off to one heck of a start.

Does anyone think Dissipate is overpowered?

No, since Hinder usually does the same job. It makes sure recursion spells can't get it (which was very relevant when Solar Flare was popular).

There hasn't been Counterspell in Standard for years and, despite this, there hasn't been one insane Combo deck that has taken over due to the fact that it doesn't have to worry about a thing when it goes off.

True. Heartbeat doesn't have to worry about anything when it is comboing out because control can't put a clock on it so it can just develop resources until it overwhelms you. Against aggro it doesn't have to worry about anything at all. So why wasn't this deck played by everybody who wanted to win? Because other strategies would have the same clock so there was still a choice in design, preference and metagame-choices.

Right now standard is all about skill and not about having the 100% better deck, Counterspell can easily upset that balance.

[unknown.root]

Um... they printed Remand. That's pretty much better than either of those cards by a long shot.

I love remand too, however in "topdeck mode" a slight delay just doesn't cut it. The format needs hard counters if it's not going to get counterspell back then, something closer, and cleaper than Cancel.

[parallax]

I don't think the primary reason for removing Counterspell was to open up design space for counterspells. That certainly is a valid reason. I think the primary reason for removing Counterspell is that R&D decided that 6CC creatures should be viable in Standard. Moving hard counters to 3 mana not only opens up design space for more counterspells, but opens up design space for higher costed spell around the board. It used to be that any card that cost more than four mana was pretty bad, because you just wouldn't be able to cast it. I like a format where blue decks are willing to cast a 5CC draw spell during their main phase.

Mana Leak, Remand, Rune Snag are all fine cards. They're not that underpowered, as they're seeing lots of play. Blue control is doing quite well with its current selection of counterspells. Counterspell at is not necessary to make mono-blue a viable archetype (see Jushi Blue). A format where aggro decks run a mana curve of 1-4 drops is more healthy than a format where aggro decks run a curve of 1-2 drops. More cards are playable. Deckbuilders have more options. The games last longer. Longer games are more fun.

[Apollyon]

Cancel does not fit into the plan of "opening up design space for new counterspells." Effectively, it's a permanent decrease in the power level of countermagic as well as a decrease in the amount of room available for new counters. The design issue was probably true back in Odyssey, but I don't think it is as relevant now.

Yes, it does. The Moxen not getting reprinted allowed for Wizards to print the following mana accelerants:
Mirage Diamonds
Invasion Cameos
Masques Parts of Ramos
Darksteel Ingot
Coldsteel Heart
Sol Grail
Signets
Time Spiral Totems

By not having stuff that you immediately start decklists with, you open up design space to allow different things to exist. While not all of the above list are highly playable, that list is certanly larger than the list of Moxen.

What? Your post is irrelevant. Apparently it's about power level, which is unrelated to the issue at hand. By putting the standard counter in the base set, you decrease the amount of freedom for developing new cards that have a similar effect. That's pretty obvious, and it goes against the whole design space motivation.

They were able to print them because the Moxen weren't there to make them all feel inferior. I'm not sure how much you've noticed, but Wizards tends to not print strictly worse cards in Standard. Every card tends to do something slightly different so that there is no 'Counterspell and Cancel'. You'll notice that Rune Snag and Miscalculation both do different things, even though they are both similar to Mana Leak.

You are also wrong about it not being about power level. Would you ever play Counterspell over Mana Drain (assuming that money and card legality isn't an issue)? Would you ever play Hinder over Counterspell? There's a grand total of 1 reason as to why I would, which is recursion. And I'd rather run an answer to the recursion than run worse cards. As such, not having Counterspell allows them to print stuff that they otherwise couldn't.

Despite what you might think, the modern Wizards R&D tends to like to design cards that could see play. Even something like Enormous Baloth is decent in Limited. There are lots of cards that won't see a lot of action, but the fact is: they could. You could sideboard in Chimney Imp against nonflying Wall.dec in Mirrodin Limited. You could sideboard in One With Nothing against the Owls. You could sideboard in Mudhole to deny your opponent threshold or to shut off land recursion.

The fact of the matter is: Counterspell is Really Good. As such, there are few reasons to print a lot of the stuff that could compete with Counterspell. By making a hard counter at 1UU, they can make lots of conditional counters, such as Muddle the Mixture at UU. And they'll all see play.

[Dxfiler]

The only reason counterspell was merely very strong for most of its career was that Wizards honestly had no idea what they were doing up until Invasion or so. Tempest and Saga block were full of outrageously broken/undercosted cards. When you can play Survival of the Fittest or Cursed Scroll before your opponent has UU up, Counterspell loses a lot of potency. But Scroll and Survival are hilariously overpowered, and when you remove such cards from the environment, you start to see how strong Counterspell actually is.

This is 100% correct, and also explains why I stayed away from constructed formats the first 8 or so years I played.  I remember when the realization hit me... it was the first time counterspell was announced as not being reprinted in a base set.  I couldn't put my finger on it at first.  Why wouldn't they reprint such a staple in 8th edition?, I thought.  Then it hit me: Wizards was completely lost when it came to card balance before this time.  You can pinpoint when they started thinking about and seriously implemented ideas to stimulate the health of formats with the hiring of Pros.  Randy Buellher was basically the benchmark for this.  For all of the gripes I have with cards Randy helped design (skullclamp anyone :p), before he came on... R&D was a joke.  It all made sense to me now.

Without even conciously realizing it, I knew why I had basically never took a liking to serious constructed formats up to 8th edition... counterspell was always the format defining card.  Two mana just let you definitevely say 'no' to anything.  The few cards made to help get around this absurd principle at this time generally sucked, like Scragnoth.  The cards that could get under a counterspell and worth countering were also generally absurd, as Jacob already mentioned.  Once there was no more cursed scroll or survival, counterspell's absurdity came to the forefront.

I personally hope that counterspell itself stays out of the limelight of new constructed formats for good.  I also hope wizards is very careful about how many 2 mana counterspell clones they make, because replicating that era of 'just say no' will certainly lose players.  I'm was starting to fear it again when both Counterblaance and Rune Snag were announced to be legal with Mana leak in type two, but it appears Time Spiral didn't bring in anything too scary (Cancel seems fine).  So for now, I'm slightly worried but not overly so.  If Wizards ever does delve back into pure 2 mana counterspells that clearly aren't needed, I'll just stay away from constructed again until it's fixed.

- Dave Feinstein 

[Matt]

...[Cancel is] a permanent decrease in the power level of countermagic as well as a decrease in the amount of room available for new counters.

Your post is irrelevant. Apparently it's about power level, which is unrelated to the issue at hand.

What?

[Machinus]

You are also wrong about it not being about power level.

Actually, this part of my thread isn't about power level.

The benchmark of countermagic doesn't matter. If it's in the base set, there is automatically less room in Type 2 for similarly-costed countermagic. In fact, you can pick any effect and this becomes an issue. If you still don't get it, go read what Forsythe wrote about Wreak Havoc.

Anyway, this was a big defense of removing Counterspell, but it appears that WotC never intended to return to Counterspell at all.

...[Cancel is] a permanent decrease in the power level of countermagic as well as a decrease in the amount of room available for new counters.

Your post is irrelevant. Apparently it's about power level, which is unrelated to the issue at hand.

What?

I'm addressing the design space argument, which is derived from the problem of critical mass. As I stated above, absolute power is irrelevant; the number of cards at the currently-accepted power level is the important information in this argument.

[Matt]

Anyway, this was a big defense of removing Counterspell, but it appears that WotC never intended to return to Counterspell at all.

I think you're jumping the gun here. You can't show that they didn't intend to at the start and simply change their mind sometime in the last...four years.

[Machinus]

That's certainly possible, and if it is, I hope to read a more detailed explanation from R&D. However, from currently available public information, it's entirely possible that Buehler was just trying to soften the blow in 2002 by hinting that he was going to change this very significant part of the game. I believe they had a good idea that something like this would happen.

[parallax]

I think it's fairly obvious that now and for the last few years, R&D believes that Counterspell's effect should cost . I've been waiting a while now for the 3CC vanilla Counterspell. I'd also consider it rather obvious that Wizards intended not to reprint Counterspell ever again starting with 8th edition.

[Moxlotus]

If Wizards wants hardcounters to cost 1UU, then do they think Forbid is overpowered?  Do you guys think Forbid is overpowered?