If you look to Want Some? you'll see I very much enjoy designing punisher cards. How could I design the ultimate off-color red punisher card without making a red counterspell?

This can also be interpreted as an interesting downside on a seriously efficient damage spell. If the opponent is on 4 life, but controls the board; they may not cast anything.

So you can just counter your own spell. I'd suggest flavour reasons might want to prevent that from working, but it messes up nice clean wording.

I do think I like this; though I might also argue that 5 damage is a bit much - it makes it a bit too firm a counter.

@Vitenka How about changing it to counter noncreature spells? What do you think that would do to the card?

I have no idea where that lives. But it would feel more natural worded as something like "Deal 5 damage to target creature unless its controller takes chooses to take the damage instead" which is massively different flavour.

I do like it as it is (and realise that the 'counter my own spell' cheese doesn't work, since, the opponent just says "uh, um, ok, go ahead, it's countered" unless you're playing a VERY strange deck or they fear that you might be.)

I wonder what everyone's response will be when I remind them that Dash Hopes exists. And its a common (albeit, a Planar Chaos 'planeshifted' common).

Yeah; that's even more unbelievably out of colour. But planeshift did that sort of thing ;)

@Vitenka Yeah, I knew about Dash Hopes. I like punisher better in red personally. But it would be good to try and change the flavor of a punisher counterspell a little methinks.

I'm wondering then, if red would prefer to word it:

"Deal 5 damage to caster of target spell, unless that player chooses to counter that spell."

I mean; it's functionally identical - but red is saying, up front "You cast a spell, so now I get to hurt you. But here, have a get-out clause"

I still think 5 is too much, personally. But I guess there's only a fine line between "powerful enough to be competitive" and "overpowered" and maybe that's where wizards say it is.

I don't mind red getting thematically appropriate countering; I just compare it to the paltry state of most of reds modern direct-burn spells and think "A little bit too good"

prolly drop the damage to 3

I think for a rare 5 damage are appropriate, it's less than two lightning bolts. But it depends if you want it to counter or deal damage...

Never mind Dash Hopes, what about Molten Influence?

The funny thing is, I can't remember Dash Hopes being used in a serious tournament deck. Dash Hopes was especially innocuous, presenting a low pick in draft. Still it runs it at 4.000 stars on Gatherer, so maybe it is all that and chips. I'm pretty sure making it cost red means it's a better card (though it comes with the occasional I was trying to stop red direct damage, but it looks like I stopped a counterspell, on a rare occasion).

I remember Molten Influence having a bit more play, but that was back in a time when Psychatog was the deck to beat, and that deck was, like 32 Instants and Sorceries plus four Psychatogs. It's currently sporting 3.729 stars, which you can take however you want.

I just need to do better gatherer searches before I design a card and claim that it's pushing fantastic new territory. =P

So...any suggestions for a punisher card that feels very non-red and pushes into new territory?

You already did lifegain.

And red already stole card draw and creature control from blue; always has had evasion and creature boosting.

Milling? (I set fire to your library!) Card discard? (I set fire to your mind!) Alternate win conditions? (I set fire to your comprules!) Damage prevention or other creature protections? (I set fire to your fire!)

Always had land destruction, also artifacts... Never got enchantment destruction I don't think? Doesn't really do library manipulation...

Probably most of those shouldn't be pushed into, though.

­Skullscorch was discard, so that's technically been done.

I actually like damage prevention. "Opponent choose one - Prevent all damage, or they take an amount of damage equal to the damage spells and abilities they control would deal this turn" or something like that. Unfortunately, it's a bit silly to pair this up right next to life gain. Looks like you're leading to something that you aren't.

Alternatively, you could just do red punishes into red. Unless a player takes six damage, deal six damage to all creatures that player controls. Act of Treason seems like a flavorful punisher card to evoke as well. Don't know if that's what you're looking for, though.

Milling's been done too: Book Burning.

And I don't really like lifegain or enchantment destruction. Why not reprint Breaking Point? Red punisher Wrath!

I don't see why you need something that "feels very non-red". If it feels non-red, it probably shouldn't be red. The tricky thing is to find something that does feel red, but hasn't technically been in red's pie before.

I seem to agree with Mark Rosewater on his Blogatog site as much as I disagree with him and I believe he once said that punisher is the one area where red is allowed to do things that red normally isn't allowed to do.

So I changed it from a better Molten Influence to a red Vindicate punisher. I think it's on flavor for red's desire to be angry and smash everything it gets frustrated with. So it's a more surgical Breaking Point.

Hmmm. Yeah, fair enough. This version is worth trying.

My instinct says 2 mana is a bit too cheap for this effect even as a punisher. But I could be wrong.

Mmm, red gets to blow up artifacts, and land and creatures relatively cheaply; but this is cheaper than any of those and also lets it hit enchantments - which seems to me to stretch it a bit far. Ah what the heck, I can get behind "Thing goes BOOM now" cards :)

@Alex Hmmm. You're right. Even cards like Pillage, Demolish and Wrecking Ball are 3 or 4 mana and most land destruction effects have also been upped in CMC lately. My idea was to make this card cheaper than Vindicate or Maelstrom Pulse, but even for red those more limited effects still cost more. With Lava Axe at 5 mana, maybe this card at would be more fair? Or perhaps keep the text as it currently is and change it to a sorcery? Most other permanent removal spells like this are instants, though...

Vindicate is pretty old. On top of all that, when Vindicate is used in Legacy, a large chunk of the time, it's aiming for a land. Or at least that was the point of using it aside Gerrard's Verdict in one of the first Legacy format winning decks. If you dropped this card on me on round 2, about 90% of the time, I'd take the 5 damage. The other 10% of the time, I wasn't going to curve out, and I'm probably going to lose anyway.

I'd say . It's still very good with Birds of Paradise, and most times I'd take the damage anyway. But at least, in this sense, it's closer to Flames of the Blood Hand. In fact, if it was up to me, I think I'd raise this to cost and increase the damage to seven to help balance the card... but I could understand if you didn't want to do that.

3 gold mana is pretty standard for Vindicate: see also Maelstrom Pulse. But both of those are gold, and are stonkingly good cards. This should be at least 3 mana; I think is good.