I've always been of the opinion that red, not white or black, should be the second color that does counterspells

­Red Elemental Blast gives your theory a fine pedigree.

It probably shouldn't get to do it better than blue, though.

Well, I wasn't comfortable with Dispel... but not with putting that card at either, so I settled on a mix with Singe. I'd probably be happy with making it nonmodal, though. Of course red would only get to counter instants and sorcery!

Given blue doesn't do damage at all anymore and 1 damage at instant is a very cheap effect (Spark Spray, Shower of sparks, Geistflame, Gut Shot, Death Spark, Searing Touch...), I'm not clear how close to "too good" this would be.

I was thinking Flash Counter, which this is (slightly, but strictly) better than.

You've also obsoleted Burnout; but I don't think that's as important.

Red's counterspells come in the form of Reverberate. There's also Guttural Response, too, I guess.

FWIW I don't consider redirection, which hardly shows up in constructed format (and only works with, y'know, spells that target!), to be doing red any kind of service. Besides since it shares that with Blue too...

Really my beef is that blue is the only color that gets significant amounts of counterspells. It is virtually the only ability in the entire game that R&D insists on allowing only one color to have. Yet allowing it into red solves the problem of deepening red and giving these two colors a new shared ability (e.g. "Counter target instant or sorcery spell.")

The 'choose one or both' just reads as too many words to me. It's nice to have the option to hit a 1/1 dude in an emergency, but this card feels more like a 'Counter-Plus'... and you can almost always target the opponent (or yourself, in an emergency) if you need that second target.

Turns out I had made the "correct" version and uploaded it months ago... it's Flux Barbs.