There’s nothing extra irritating in Magic: The Gathering than falling prey to blue’s most annoying gimmick: the Counterspell. Blue’s complete shade identification is about controlling the move of play and manipulating each the battlefield and gamers’ palms with magic. For a comparatively low value, somebody enjoying blue can counter nearly any spell, no matter how costly, primarily making that spell a complete waste of time and mana. That is what makes any type 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 capability: Spells and skills cannot be countered. So long as he stays on the board, it primarily disables counterspells throughout the whole desk. At four-player Commander tables, that has a big impact.
However transfer over Spider-Punk, aka Hobart “Hobie” Brown, as a result of there is a new counterspell troll within the recreation — or somewhat, counterspell boggart. With the worldwide debut of the upcoming Lorwyn Eclipsed set on Jan. 5, Wizards of the Coast revealed the goblin sorcerer referred to as Hexing Squelcher.
Hexing Squelcher is a 2/2 that prices one colorless and one purple mana. It will probably’t be countered and has a Ward value of “Pay 2 life,” so it may’t be focused by any spells until the caster offers up two life. However it additionally has “Spells you management cannot be countered” and offers the identical ward to different creatures you management. (Title-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.)
Evaluate that to Spider-Punk: It is a 2/1 with the identical value. It disables counters for the whole board and makes it in order that harm can’t be prevented. It additionally has riot (it enters with a +1/+1 counter or haste) and offers your entire spiders riot.
Due to the limitation on Spider-Punk’s riot-gifting capability (it solely results spiders), it features greatest in a spider-focused deck. And since it is a Legendary creature, that solely additional limits its potential. In Commander, the place you may 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 may have as much as 4 copies of a card in your deck, Legendary means you may solely have one model of the cardboard on the board at any given time. Even that is not too massive 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 should you’re feeling super-redundant, you may replenish 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 protected 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 situation, whereas Hexing Squelcher helps solely you. And since goblin is such a typical and well-liked creature kind, the Squelcher is about to turn out to be an important element in nearly each goblin deck shifting ahead. Heck, it is price together with in nearly any deck that even dips purple. It will be attention-grabbing to see the way it may get integrated into skilled tier decks, notably the place blue-red stays the most well-liked shade 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.
