There’s nothing extra irritating in Magic: The Gathering than falling prey to blue’s most annoying gimmick: the Counterspell. Blue’s whole coloration id is about controlling the circulate of play and manipulating each the battlefield and gamers’ arms with magic. For a comparatively low price, somebody taking part in blue can counter virtually any spell, no matter how costly, basically making that spell a complete waste of time and mana. That is what makes any form of counter to counterspells so darn satisfying. Although the Spider-Man set does not have a ton of compelling playing cards to supply, Spider-Punk stands out as an elite purple card that is viable in most recreation codecs, primarily due to one skill: Spells and talents cannot be countered. So long as he stays on the board, it basically disables counterspells throughout the whole desk. At four-player Commander tables, that has a huge effect.
However transfer over Spider-Punk, aka Hobart “Hobie” Brown, as a result of there is a new counterspell troll within the recreation — or fairly, counterspell boggart. With the worldwide debut of the upcoming Lorwyn Eclipsed set on Jan. 5, Wizards of the Coast revealed the goblin sorcerer known as Hexing Squelcher.
Hexing Squelcher is a 2/2 that prices one colorless and one purple mana. It may’t be countered and has a Ward price of “Pay 2 life,” so it could’t be focused by any spells except the caster offers up two life. But it surely additionally has “Spells you management cannot be countered” and offers the identical ward to different creatures you management. (Identify-wise, Hexing Squelcher looks like an apparent riff on Vexing Shusher from the Shadowmoor set, a red-green creature that, for the price of one purple or one inexperienced mana, might make it so {that a} goal spell couldn’t be countered.)
Examine that to Spider-Punk: It is a 2/1 with the identical price. It disables counters for the whole board and makes it in order that injury can’t be prevented. It additionally has riot (it enters with a +1/+1 counter or haste) and offers your whole spiders riot.
Due to the limitation on Spider-Punk’s riot-gifting skill (it solely results spiders), it capabilities greatest in a spider-focused deck. And since it is a Legendary creature, that solely additional limits its potential. In Commander, the place you’ll be able to solely have one distinctive copy of any card in your deck anyway, Legendary is not a giant deal. However in additional conventional recreation codecs, the place you’ll be able to have as much as 4 copies of a card in your deck, Legendary means you’ll be able to solely have one model of the cardboard on the board at any given time. Even that is not too huge of a deal contemplating each playing cards disable counters as a blanket impact. However Hexing Squelcher makes it in order that “spells YOU management” cannot be countered, whereas Spider-Punk does it for ALL spells. And for those who’re feeling super-redundant, you’ll be able to refill your board with Hexing Squelchers to make sure that your opponent by no means counters any of your spells ever once more. Even when they take away as much as three of them, so long as one stays on the board, you are secure from the torment of a counterspell.
That distinction is most obvious in four-player Commander. Spider-Punk helps at the least two opposing gamers in that state of affairs, whereas Hexing Squelcher helps solely you. And since goblin is such a standard and in style creature kind, the Squelcher is about to grow to be an important part in just about each goblin deck transferring ahead. Heck, it is value together with in virtually any deck that even dips purple. It’s going to be attention-grabbing to see the way it may get integrated into skilled tier decks, significantly the place blue-red stays the most well-liked coloration combo.
For now, the Magic scene awaits the grand debut of Hexing Squelcher when Lorwyn Eclipsed has Play Early occasions at native recreation shops from Jan. 15 to 22 earlier than a full launch on Jan. 23.
