The 31 Best Counterspells of All Time in Magic Ranked

Last updated on July 18, 2024

Counterspell (Secret Lair) | Illustration by Mateus Manhanini

Playing counterspells in Magic: The Gathering is one of the surest ways to use your spells to control the pace of the game. Starting with the humble Counterspell and expanding ever-outward to include a variety of restrictions, boons, and card types, counter magic has defined the way blue decks play the game since Alpha.

Counterspells are some of the most ubiquitous instants, and are one of the main reasons you’re allowed to interact and cast spells on an opponent's turn. But what are counterspells, how do we cast them, and which are the best? Let’s take a look at some of the best counterspells of all time!

What Are Counterspells in MTG?

Counterspell | Illustration by Zack Stella

Counterspells are spells that “counter” a spell or ability. They’re usually instants cast in response to another spell on the stack, where they can target it to send it to the graveyard rather than allow it to resolve. A countered spell's effects don’t happen – they’re simply negated and the card goes to the graveyard unless otherwise specified. The player whose spell or ability was countered doesn’t get a refund of any costs they paid, unlike some other TCGs with a similar mechanic.

Most counterspells are blue cards, and specifically blue instants, as it’s what blue does best, but there are more than a few playable off-color counterspells.

Broadly, there are two types of counterspells in Magic: “hard” and “soft.” Hard counters stop spells in their tracks without any restrictions, while soft spells either only stop the spell temporarily, or have an option to bypass the counter.

Counterspell is a hard counter, while Mana Leak is a soft counter. One of these types isn’t necessarily better than the other; while soft counters have a harder time permanently stopping threats, they’re usually cheaper to cast and can be more efficient for your mana base. We’ll be taking this into account when ranking the spells in this list.

#31. Delay

Delay isn’t super popular, but it's seen a resurgence in play in Commander since the release of the suspend and time counter themes in Doctor Who Commander precons. I’ll entertain arguments both for and against Delay being a hard counter, as that spell, technically, is coming back at some point, and if it's a creature it’ll be even more threatening because of haste. However, there’s no reason we can’t lock that spell in the suspend-zone forever with some wonky Timebender combo.

#30. No More Lies

No More Lies is a soft counter that exiles the countered spell. It’s got a better going rate than Dissipate, and in the early game it should work just as well, if not better.

#29. Three Steps Ahead

Look, up in the sky! It’s a Cancel! It’s a Clone! It’s a Catalog!

No, it’s Three Steps Ahead, a modal card with spree, which lets you choose additional modes for their associated costs. Three Steps Ahead is useful because, while the rates for each of its individual abilities are a bit slower than we’d like, the option to use any of them on one card means we can run that many less Cancels, Clones, and Catalogs in the rest of our library. This frees up space for more cards that actually win us the game, rather than just stall out our opponents.

#28. Whirlwind Denial

Whirlwind Denial has the same advantages of a Flusterstorm, in that it’s looking to counter a ton of effects on the stack all at once. At 3 mana, it’s a little expensive to be used as a follow-up to your back-and-forth counterspell war on the stack, but it's a fine way to remove the 100,000,000 instances of Goblin Bombardment’s effect.

#27. Avoid Fate

One of the very few mono-green counterspells is Avoid Fate, and I’m constantly surprised I don’t see more people running this green instant in EDH. Avoid Fate is one of the best protection spells you can get in a non-blue Commander deck, and nobody is ever expecting you to hard-counter their Darksteel Mutation or Imprisoned in the Moon with a 1-mana green counterspell.

#26. Render Silent

Three mana is on the expensive end for counterspells, but Render Silent’s ability to put a stop to any more of your opponent’s nonsense this turn makes it one of the best for controlling the game. Excellent for when your opponent is trying to bait out your counterspell so they can follow up with the spell they actually want to resolve; Render Silent effectively stops both of those cards from hitting the field.

#25. Cryptic Command

At 4 mana, Cryptic Command is one of the more expensive counters on this list, but the options this modal spell gives you make it too valuable to completely ignore. Despite the restrictive three blue symbols in its mana cost, Cryptic Command is at worst a cheaper Contradict and the ceiling on its value is very high.

#24. Arcane Denial

Arcane Denial is a 2-mana hard counterspell with the caveat that the countered spell’s controller draws two cards at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep, and you’ll draw a card too. This spell sees mostly Commander play these days, being a politically pleasant way to counter an opponent’s Atarka, World Render and still offer them compensation for their loss. Replacing itself in your hand like a cantrip makes it great for keeping pace with the rest of the table, too.

#23. Memory Lapse

I’m also entertaining arguments as to whether Memory Lapse is a hard counter or soft counter. This unrestricted counterspell is a great price at 2 mana, but it's undeniable that that spell is coming back at some point. Some would say this is a downside to Memory Lapse, but I’d argue that locking an opponent into drawing the same card is an effective way to control the game. If they never see any new cards, and don’t have any answers to your threats on the board, you can effectively stop them from playing the game.

#22 Archmage’s Charm

Archmage's Charm is an efficient use of no matter how you slice it. In a pinch, using it as a hard counter can feel a little bad, since we’re effectively paying an extra for a basic Counterspell, but the variety of uses for the Charm is what makes it powerful. Hold that three blue up to threaten an opponent during their turn, forcing them to cast something nonthreatening so they don’t lose it to your counter, and then draw two cards at the end of their turn anyway. Or steal their Sol Ring.

#21. Counterspell

Counterspell is the weathervane for how we rank other countermagic. I mean, it’s name is Counterspell, for Ugin’s sake. It’s played in every format it's legal in, simply because its unrestricted disruption and cheap mana cost make it an essential control card for every blue deck. Richard Garfield even had the good foresight to print it at common rarity, ensuring every player would have access to one of the prime examples of blue Magic.

#20. Spellstutter Sprite

Spellstutter Sprite is a hard-counter creature with flash that gets better depending on the number of Faeries you control. In most instances, you should have enough Faeries to counter any one thing your opponent throws at you, so for 2 mana this is a pretty fair rate for a counterspell. You also get another Faerie body to synergize with the next Spellstutter Sprite, and it's a 1/1 with flying and flash to boot!

#19. Dovin’s Veto

Sometimes, you need to be absolutely sure. Dovin's Veto is the Negate you play into other control decks. Stopping a spell in its tracks without the worry of an opponent’s Cancel on your counterspell can bring you a peace of mind unparalleled by simply casting Arcane Denial.

#18. Tale’s End

Tale's End is Stifle, with the option to counter a legendary spell as well. About as useful as Stifle, its extra mana cost and extra option make it better for slower formats like Commander.

#17. Stifle

One of the only ways to counter an ability is with Stifle. This 1-mana hard-counter is so unique that it sees play across every format it’s legal in. Stifle just stops everything that Counterspell can’t. Opponent trying to tap and sacrifice a fetch land? Stifle the effect on the stack so they lose the land. Stop the storm trigger on Weather the Storm so they only get one copy of the spell. Turn off Craterhoof Behemoth’s ETB trigger. The possibilities are endless!

#16. Power Sink

Power Sink is an X-spell worth playing just because of its confusing, word-salad of a text box. Basically, you’re soft-countering their spell unless they pay X. If they can’t pay X, or refuse to, they still tap all their lands and empty their mana pool, rendering the rest of their turn awash, more or less.

#15. Swan Song

Swan Song is one of the better 1-mana counterspells in the game. It’s a hard counter, but compensates the opponent with a 2/2 bird for their troubles. It's semi-restrictive in its targets as far as 1-mana counters go, but can very effectively shut down control decks. The real value in 1-mana counters is that the single Island you’ve left untapped doesn’t look nearly as much like a Counterspell, which you can use to lull your opponent into a false sense of security.

#14. Strix Serenade

R&D really loves to be cutesy and finish a two-card cycle years after the fact. That’s fine, because I really wanted a Swan Song that could hit creatures, artifacts, and planeswalkers, too. Whether or not this is better than Swan Song is entirely dependent on the deck you’re playing against – this’ll completely whiff versus that Melek, Izzet Paragon entirely-spells deck, just like Swan Song whiffs versus aggro decks.

#13. Spell Pierce

Spell Pierce is a great value common that soft-counters a noncreature spell. Even though the humble Negate may seem like a better exchange of mana-to-possible-counter, remember that opponents are often tapping out to cast their huge Fireball and not expecting to see a Spell Pierce – countering their spell as well as a Counterspell would, anyway.

#12. Daze

Daze was a free counterspell that was too good for Pauper. Soft-countering any spell unless an opponent pays 1 shouldn’t have been such a huge problem, until you realize you can play it for free and easily get it back from your graveyard or draw into another copy. In an environment of only commons, Daze is one of the best counterspells available. It still shows up in Legacy decks, too.

#11. Flusterstorm

Flusterstorm takes Spell Pierce and slaps storm onto it. This is basically the best answer to other storm decks, scaling with the number of spells already played this turn and costed as cheaply as you can get.

#10. Elemental Blasts + Hydro/Pyroblast

Blue Elemental Blast and Hydroblast are two of the best color-hoser cards in the game. Not only are they 1-mana hard counters, they’re also 1-mana removal. They’re the best cards to sideboard in against a red deck, and are only beaten out by the red instant versions: Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast, made more valuable by the lack of counter magic in red.

#9. An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Similar to the way Arcane Denial compensates your opponent with cards, An Offer You Can't Refuse justifies its 1-mana value by giving an opponent two Treasure tokens in this trying time. At 1 mana, you can’t get much better value for a hard counter, and stopping that specific noncreature spell from resolving is often way more important than the two extra mana they’ll have on the following turn.

#8. Fierce Guardianship

Fierce Guardianship is just about the best way to protect your commander at instant speed with a counterspell. This is a free Negate in most instances. With Fierce Guardianship, you can tap out to play your commander without fear of it dying immediately to a wild Doom Blade. Really, the only thing that can make a hard counter like this better was the option to cast it for free, so there’s no denying this is one of the best ever counterspells for Commander.

#7. Flare of Denial

Flare of Denial is the newest free counterspell on the block, hailing from a cycle of rares in Modern Horizons 3. Flare of Denial is a hard counter that can be cast for free by sacrificing a nontoken blue creature. It’s a little worse than the other free blue counterspells, just because it requires a board presence from you before you can cast it for free, as opposed to Force of Will and Pact of Negation. Plus, running blue creatures specifically for sacrificing isn’t the best strategy, since many blue creatures in competitive formats are value engines you want to stick to the board, or important combo pieces like Thassa's Oracle.

#6. Mental Misstep

Banned in both Modern and Legacy, Mental Misstep is a free hard counterspell (because why bother paying mana when you could use life) for any spell with a Mana value equal to 1. There are a lot of essential Magic cards that cost 1 mana, and Mental Misstep’s option to be cast without any mana means the blue player will be countering spells before they’ve even taken their first turn. This spell is one of the most aggressive control cards in the game, shutting down opponents’ first turn.

#5. Pact of Negation

Pact of Negation comes from the cycle of Pacts in Time Spiral, a number of 0-cost spells that require you to pay a cost at your next upkeep. Otherwise, you lose the game. This blue entry into the Pacts cycle is clearly the best – 5 mana is a steep investment for a Counterspell, but baiting out an opponent’s win condition and then surprise countering it is priceless.

#4. Mindbreak Trap

Mindbreak Trap is interesting because it doesn’t actually counter any spells. Instead, it exiles them from the stack, which also prevents them from resolving similar to countering. What makes Mindbreak Trap very good is the option to pay 0 for its mana cost if your opponent starts storming off. If they’ve put a lot of spells on the stack, perhaps by storming off with Weather the Storm, you can drop Mindbreak Trap to exile every single one of those copies, completely nullifying their storm. Plus, since it doesn’t technically counter a spell, it can be used to get around the uncounterable cards out there like Abrupt Decay.

#3. Force of Negation

Force of Negation is a free hard-counter to Negate and Dissipate a noncreature spell. As one of Magic's best free spell, it's played just about everywhere it's available, being a free counterspell and all, and in colors where it won’t be hard to draw into more blue cards.

It has an interesting restriction on when it can be cast for free, but not nearly prohibitive enough to make this card bad. You’re mostly countering spells on your opponents’ turns anyways, and in a multiplayer formats, you’ve got several turns that aren’t yours where you could use Force of Negation.

#2. Mana Drain

Mana Drain is a spell clearly dreamed up during the wild, uncharted early years of Magic. This Legends Counterspell adds mana to your mana pool equal to the value of the spell it just countered, during your next main phase. A well-timed Mana Drain can pull you so far ahead in value that an opponent could never hope to catch up. If they’ve spent their whole turn tapping out to cast a spell, your countering and subsequent extra mana on your following turn basically feels like an entire extra turn for you.

#1. Force of Will

This is it. It’s the best counterspell you can possibly play. Force of Will is free, unrestricted, and a hard counter that should only ever cost you 1 life and a blue card from your hand to cast. Any time you can use all of your mana on something and still have the option to counter the response from your opponent, you should take it.

Force of Will has defined countermagic since its release. Every rare and mythic counterspell is compared to it, and we’ve yet to see another free counterspell as valuable as this.

Best Counterspell Payoffs

Most, if not all counterspells are instants, so anything that synergizes well with casting a lot of instants can reward your counterspell-heavy deck. Talrand, Sky Summoner is one of my favorite blue commanders for a deck entirely built from counterspells. Talrand rewards you for each time your opponent tries to cast something without permission by creating a 2/2 flier. Before long, you’ll have an army of Drake tokens to sweep across the board with.

Cards that reduce the cost of your counterspells are always a boon, as well. The familiars Pauper deck runs a playset of Sunscape Familiar to not only cheapen their counterspells, but also cheapen up the cost of the Archaeomancers they use to get them back.

Why Is Counterspell So Good?

Counterspell is good because it's an unrestricted answer to any spell your opponent plays. For 2 mana, it can counter mostly everything in the game, save for uncounterable spells. It’s the best way to deal with threats before they hit the board, stopping creatures’ ETB effects and preventing a player from getting an activation off of their planeswalker before you can kill it in combat. Simply put, the best way to deal with a threat in Magic is to remove it before it's a threat, and Counterspell rips spells right out of the stack and into the graveyard.

What Happens When You Counter A Spell?

When you counter a spell on the stack, it has no effect and goes straight to the graveyard. Some counterspells, like Remand or Dissipate, specify sending the card to a different zone.

If you target an uncounterable spell like Abrupt Decay with a Counterspell, the counter simply fizzles and does nothing, similar to when you target an indestructible permanent with something that says “destroy.” You technically can do it, but it has no effect other than ticking up your storm count.

How Many Counterspells Should You Play In Your Deck?

The number of counterspells you should play really depends on the deck you’re building. Mono-red aggro decks usually won’t call for, or even be able to include counterspells besides Pyroblast.

If your strategy requires you to control the board for several turns, you’re most likely running counterspells. Decks that want to tap out every turn and run lots of sorcery-speed creatures won’t typically want many counterspells, since keeping mana up during their opponent’s turn interferes with their game plan.

Ultimately, the ratio of your total number of counterspells versus other interaction versus your actual win conditions will come down to playtesting, personal preference, and the local meta you encounter. If you have a consistent enough plan to get your win condition out regularly, you can reduce the number of copies of those cards and run more counter magic to protect yourself and your combo. If your deck needs to play threats every turn and use all of its mana, you’ll want little to no counter magic.

Does Countering a Spell Count as Committing A Crime?

Almost always, but with a couple of exceptions.

Committing a crime requires targeting something an opponent controls, and they control their own spells on the stack. If you counter their spell, you usually have to target it to do so, resulting in a crime.

There are a couple of exceptions, though: Whirlwind Denial, for example, doesn't target anything.

What Happens If You Cascade Into A Counterspell?

If you cascade into a counterspell, you can cast that spell the same as you would any other cascaded spell. The caveat is that it can only target another spell on the stack, usually your Bloodbraid Elf or other cascade enabler. You can always choose not to cast the spell, which means you’ll have wasted your cascade trigger. Because of this, cascade decks should run little to no counterspells.

What Happens If You Discover A Counterspell?

Similar to cascade, if you discover your way into a Counterspell you have the option to cast it for free. Like cascade, though, there often isn’t anything on the stack you want to target with a counter. Unlike cascade, discover lets you put the revealed card into your hand instead of wasting it.

Wrap Up

Counterspell (Jace vs. Chandra) | Illustration by Jason Chan

Counterspell and counterspells more generally are the backbone to blue decks in Magic: The Gathering. They’re one of the hallmark effects that make Magic engaging, pitting you and your opponent against each other in a mind war of threats and bluffing to prove whose wile and wit is superior. They’ll literally never go away, and will only get better and expand into new design space as Magic continues to grow.

What are some of the counterspells you remember from when you first got into Magic? Are any of them still around? Let me know in the comments, or over on Draftsim's Twitter/X.

Thanks for reading, watch out for those two untapped Islands!