Annoying Cards From Magic 2: All You Will Hear From Me Is NO.

There is a card in Magic, well a type of card, which throughout the years has caused more tooth cracking frustration and hatred than any other type of card.

All 5 of the colours have access to it, there's colourless versions of it as well, and each and every single time a new player comes up against them it feels like being kicked in the teeth.

There have been countless variations on the theme and they have created an entire deck archetype around themselves but never the less these 220 or so cards have caused more game losses, more close victories, more bored frustrated games and more cries of rage and calls for bannings than any other type of card.

Not bad for 2 blue mana eh? I am of course talking about Counterspell and its other fellow co-conspiritors.

Before I launch into this article I just need to get something out of the way.
Mana Drain, Force of Will, Power Sink, Force Spike, Circular Logic, Rewind, Draining Whelk, Voidmage Prodigy, Cryptic Command, Quash, Foil, Spellstutter Sprite, Daze and Counterbalance right those are the terrors and giants of this particular achetype out the way. I know I've missed some out but for the most part they are the defining counters of their time or are still considered powerful. What I really want to show you is the more interesting cards to have been spat out while creating counters and control cards.

Wizards seem to have a love for counterspells even to the point of putting them into sets that were designed for intro play. Portal, Portal 2 and Portal Three Kingdoms all had counterspells with rather odd wordings printed so they could work in that particular, slightly crippled, enviroment. False Summoning and Preemptive Strike took care of creatures. While the misprinted Extinguish (which I am fortunate enough to own) took care of the spells. While Portal only had 1 counterspell it managed to pull double duty and look amazing at the same time in the form of Mystic Denial.

Now the counterspells I'm going to talk about for the rest of the article fall into 3 broad catagories. Blue, Multi-Coloured and Non-Blue and finally Unfortunate Art. I'll start with Multi-Coloured and Non-Blue and finish with Unfortunate Art.

Within the annals of magic there's more than a few non-blue counterspells and multi-coloured counters but a few stand out to me for various reasons.

Mundungu from Visions builds upon the Disruptive Student (or Vodalian Mage if you want to be old) archetype and by splashing in black costs the player life as well as mana. This allows it to stay a threat in late game and slowly chip at a player, while not amazing this card does seem like something I could throw in an EDH or fun deck and play about with.

Mages' Contest could be considered for an unfortunate art section but I do like the whole bidding for life effect. It allows you to easily find out if the spell is required by your opponent to win and nothing is more satisfying that finally blowing their face off once they've ditch a whole load of life to let that one spell go off.

Planar Chaos shares a name with a set and one of my favorite mechanics, flipping coins, while the chances of it going off for more than a couple of turns are slim, the havok it can cause in multiplayer games is something not to be missed. Having dropped this in a 12 player free-for-all and had everyone gunning for me within 2 players turns is something of wonder in my eyes.

For many many many years I have played Red/Green Aggro or just simple Green Stompy and so Not of This World was an answer to my prayers. What's that? You want to kill spell my fattie? Sorry, no dice. Mr Giant beatstick says away with you. Any deck that can consistantly summon 7+ power creatures should consider this even if it's solely for protection rather than trolling.

Equinox has possibly the most distinctive artwork I've ever seen on a magic card and a nearly unique effect in that it turns one of your lands into an effective counter for land destruction. While this sort of mechanic is rarely seen to any real power level in the current form of magic it was rife in the early days of magic so a card like this showed early consideration for the metagame and the creation of "silver bullet" type cards to deal with common overused effects.

Swift Silence and Double Negative both seem very strange at first glance, they allow for the countering of multiple cards through one card. Now while I've never had much luck using them I have a few friends that consider them auto-includes in EDH decks thanks to the power to scupper various degenerative combos. Swift Silence seems the better card in my eyes but countering an entire stack can cause you to vastly overdraw your deck so caution should be advised in using this card.

Chalice of the Void shall always hold a special place in my twisted, blackened heart thanks to the one and only time I have used it playing in a Vintage tournament at the urging of a friend of mine. Due to some insanely lucky draws I managed to win a terrifiying number of games, considering my deck was a heap of ass, thanks to dropping this card for 0 mana on my first turn and preventing moxes and the like from hitting the table.

Finally Voidslime for 2 reasons. It's a nice effect for GUU and it has tentacle rape on the car. Or judging by her expression a surprise that looks to turn into a wonderful afternoon.

Now within blue there's well over 150 counterspells but there's a few I want to highlight here that either break from the mold or do interesting things alongside countering spells.

Bazaar of Wonders is a card that cries out to have a deck built around it. It allows highlander decks fantastic oppertunities against an opponent running multiples of cards and just tingles that lovely jonny part of my brain trying to figure out interesting ways to abuse it's effect. Possibly some sort of mill deck......

Desertion rubs sulphur in the wounds of the poor bastich that you counter the spell of. They play a giant fatty and not only do you stop the damm thing hitting the table but you also steal it and proceed to beat face with the thing. I also love the fact it allows for the stealing of artifacts as well allowing you control of that oh so annoying lockdown card they've just dropped.

If you play alot of EDH games you should be familiar with Ice Cave, it allows a deck with good colour fixing, or simply a bunch of people who want to hate on someone, to prevent the casting of anything that's a real threat while allowing fun interaction and politicing between players. There's nothing quite like having someone beg you not to counter their spell and offer you the world if you'll let it go off.

Psychic Trance is a card I always wanted to abuse but could never get round to it. I suppose now that Onslaught is out of Extended I could go round and hoover up some decent wizards but I can't seem to think of a situation where it would be that useful, as soon as you drop it your opponent is going to simply stop casting spells. But I suppose being able to effectively stop a player for a turn is well worth four poxy mana.

I've always liked spells that are specific so Spell Snare and Nix are about as specific in requirements as you can get. Spell Snare seems a nice answer to all those 2 drop counterspells and kill effects and Nix is so blantantly printed to stop the various 0 Cost tricks it may as well be called Metagame.

Rarely do you want to cast a counter on a spell you control but Spellshift and Fold into Æther both encourage you to do this almost. If you have a nice fattie or know there's a decent enough spell coming up you can drop this spell onto a 1 drop you fart out to wreak havok on your opponent. When I saw these 2 spells my brain started wirring and spinning with thoughts on what I could do with them.

No article on interesting counterspells would be complete without Spelljack. I'm yet to meet someone who plays magic who hasn't found this card either interesting or funny. I don't think I've built a single blue EDH deck without it being in there and while Judgement was played I know more than 1 player who put it in their deck just for shits and giggles.

Finally for blue there is Discombobulate. I just like the name, it's more than likely my favourite magic card name until they come up with one called malarky.

Now as we all know there are magic cards with some truely terrible or amazing art out there and counters are no exception here are 4 though that truely stand out to me as I trawled through thousands of magic cards for this article.

Invoke Prejudice is just unfortunate. What looks like Klansmen on a card all about stopping cards that don't share a colour with yours from being cast. Ouch. Still at least the card isn't white....

Miscalculation or "Why You Don't Let the Wayans Brothers Help Cast A Spell". While the inclusion of Cycling is nice, dear christ those faces should have been tipexed out.

Brine Seer. Rapist eyes. That is all. The flavor text should have been "Scream and they'll never find your body."

Finally thanks to the wonders of Phil Foglio we have Presence of the Master. While the art is no-where near unfortunate I do rather like being able to drop a card with Einstien on it. Eureka is another favorite of mine for a similar reason except drawn by his lovely lady wife.

So there you have it, some of the more interesting counterspells culled from magic's long and varied history. Feel free to comment on your most hated and favorite counterspells and I have the feeling I'll be returning to this subject again in the future.

Appologies once again for the lateness of this article but a pounding headache lasting 2 and a half days does not make for good writing motivation.