­Counterspell + Hysterical Response. The random card generator was going to give me one of the clasic spells at some time.

It's funny. This card runs from being too powerful, to too easy to thwart. It's going to be interesting seeing how people respond to this card being in the environment after a couple of drafts. I expect people will start blocking a little more before casting Giant Growth...

­Counterspell plus what?

Very fun card, anyway :)

Ha! The card should be Incite Hysteria. I'm evidently starting to mash my own cards into themselves and breaking all laws of physics while I'm at it.

This also serves to punish people for casting spells in their first main phase. Although in a way that new players traditionally find pretty frustrating itself.

By the way, note that two-colour hard counterspells still need in their cost. You only get unconditional "Counter target spell" with one if you're casting a three-or-more-colour spell.

That is an excellent point. I'm not sure what to do here. This card is a good choice for a common, and I don't want to stink it up with . I think, for consistancy, I might have to. Any thoughts?

I wonder if could get "Counter target coloured spell"? That would be in flavour, and not technically a hard counter, even though it is to all intents and purposes, and should probably get the second-best counterspells after , such as they are. I think that's actually too good (you can definitely splash it in a white deck, which has plenty of ways of dealing with artifacts and eldrazi) but you might get away with it once...

Counter target colored spell works. It evokes a potential color v. colorless block that I'd be interested in seeing, and it makes sense for the card. Changing back to original cost.

Also, while Spike will keep lording this card over Timmy, I'd find it hilarious the one day Timmy reversed the card back at Spike.

Timmy: Unsummon your Sphinx.
Spike: Yeah. Right. Hysterical Response.
Timmy: Sweet! Your blue creatures can't block now!
Spike: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

"Timmy: Sweet! Your blue creatures can't block now!"

ROFL. That's awesome.

And I mean, Spike will only be abusing this when they're playing white and want a 4-cost blue counterspell -- which is not a traditional Spike deck :)

"a potential color v. colorless block"

Like on Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in Eldrazi? :)

It's true. That set can sometimes be referred to as "Emerakul vs. the rest of Zendikar".

Also, I'm not a Spike, but if I was, I'd probably think Hysterical Response would make a good top end to a Fish deck. The creatures are supposed to be small in those decks, but the counters can be a little expensive, since you play them later. Then again, my power level knowledge is a little stuck in 2006.

And I've never played competitively at all, so I really don't know...

But my point is, judging from the name, Fish decks already usually play blue for other good, cheap counterspells? If so, then they're playing this for the combat phase clasue, which is exactly what it's supposed to be used for.

The in hard counters guideline is stop other colours of deck splashing blue for counterepells and only allow counterspells to decks at least half blue. So long as an existing blue deck is playing this card, it doesnt' make any difference. It's only if a W or W/u dck wants to splash this card would its lack of be a weakness, and W decks might want this, but as a 4-mana-cost card with a combat phase rider, it doesn't feel like it's opening the floodgates to non-blue Spikes. Am I completely off base?

The double blue for hard counters is a little bit of mystery for me. I assume it's the way things are, because that's what they've done, more than because they don't want other colors to have access to hard counters. As it stands, cards like Mana Leak already feel like a hard counter in a deck that races the opponent, so I personally don't know what the big problem would be with allowing 4cc and 5cc counterspells to be blue splashable. My best guess is that the majority of players and amateur designers, like myself, don't have a decent argument as to why shouldn't be used... so it stays that way.

I have seen fast 2-color blue decks use 4cc counters that were not Cryptic Command. The poster child for this has got to be Rewind. In about 2003, there was no real reason for a beatdown deck to use Rewind, except for the fact that it could be used as Counterspell 5-7. When the environment consists of blue beatdown decks versus Good stuff decks (Mana Ramp into expensive 5+CC drops), then it doesn't really matter what Counter you use, as long as it stops Wrath of God from hitting.

All this being said, one should keep in mind that not all Spikes are Netdeckers, and not all Netdeckers are Spikes. I have a Spike in our League who makes crazy and absurd decks because of the restraints that our League has. This League says that you can open any booster packs to make your deck, and he consistently opens Lorwyn/Morningtide... I assume, because his Spike nature loves the synergy that all the cards in the set give him. There are certain cards he enjoys playing, because of the way that they make him feel. Silvergill Douser for example is a strong card that deflates his opponents while he tightens the screws, making him feel smart. Perfect Spike card. It wasn't used in many tournament environments, though, because Lorwyn had a better selection of Merfolk to choose from.

Hm. Good point.

I need a hard counter in the set, so I'm moving this guy from Workbench to Alpha. Not really a 'hard counter', but it's so close, that it fills the role. I also didn't want it to be multi-colored, since this is the set's hard counter, and I want all blue decks to have access to it. And, since this card was made early in the process, when I wasn't sure what I was doing, but later started to enforce "Only multi-color when absolutely neccessary."

In the process, he lost the old clause which said:
"Creatures that share a color with that spell can't attack or block this turn."
Which was cute, but you can see my previous reservations about that ability. Now we're more on color, and more universally relevent... even if we've shifted into "inspired by" more than "Direct descendant of".