I predict something good with miracles, but not too good.
How about:
U
Sorcery
Draw 2 cards, then put 2 cards in your hand on top of your library.
A mini, sorcery speed brainstorm shouldn't be too good for any format.
I was actually about to post this EXACT thing. I think it is somewhat fair because it gives you sorting and control, while not being instant speed.
However, it may make miracles too powerful. Now, it does help miracles become playable, whereas right now they really aren't more than a 1-2 of in a deck at the most because of how high the "late game" costs were that they were given. I don't know if Wizards aimed miracles to be more for limited play though to enhance the Helvault opening Avacyn returning experience. I have seen people insist on the quality of the miracle mechanic, but the only one I see as maybe being playable right now (and mind you, only as a 1-2 of) are Temporal Mastery, Entreat the Angels, Terminus, and Devastation Tide, and this is a BIG maybe. The fact that they are almost all essentially dead cards unless you hit them as miracles makes them very undesirable when one considers consistency. To be forced to mulligan because one card in your starting hand cannot ever be in your starting hand to reasonably play it is really terrible consistency. With the exception of Devastation Tide, the regulars costs on the others are either barely playable, or not playable.
So, if it was Wizards intention with miracles to spice up the limited play, then we will likely not see something like this. If they intended miracles for popular play, then they will need a card that gets miracles out of your hand, though not likely right on top of your library, but maybe not so far, necessarily, as the bottom of your library. They could always do something more like:
U
Sorcery
Draw three (or two) cards then shuffle two (or one) card(s) from your hand into your library.
Something like this is more likely, in my opinion. I think if we start putting cards on top of libraries, with miracles, at one mana cost, we WILL be seeing Delver decks taking extra early turns via Temporal Mastery. Yes, Delver decks could already be doing this with Ponder, but not nearly as easily. If you add this card into the mix, Delver decks would likely run both, in addition to 4 X Temporal Mastery. So, then we see something like this become commonplace:
First turn: Island (Or Seachrome), Ponder
Second turn: Island (Or Seachrome, or Glacial Fortress), Delver, Proposed Card putting Temporal Mastery on top
Third turn(a): Reveal Mastery and flip Delver, Draw Mastery and play it, Land, Attack with Delver for 3, possibly play second Delver
Third turn(b): Possibly flip second Delver, Land, Play and equip Runechanter's Pike to original Delver, Attack for 5-8.
And we see that in the course of a single "Third" turn, Delver could easily drop someone to 50% life. This is actually one of the better case scenarios, considering that the originally proposed card would let someone set up a Temporal Mastery on the third turn, fourth turn, or whenever to flat out ensure a kill once the Delver player has an established board. They really only need to draw one to use the proposed card twice, thanks to Snapcaster. So, just on the basis of this example, we cannot have cheap spells putting cards back on top of the library, whether it is at instant or sorcery speed.
It is true that one can just mill the top card after they attempt to set this up, but cheap milling spells are exclusively in blue, thus the ability to stop this synergy is limited to one color, which happens to be the same color that the synergy exists in, which is bad for diversity. I suppose discard could help attack it, but think about the amount of times the Temporal Mastery will be in hand only long enough to go right back on the library.
There are just too many reasons against putting a card in Standard right now that lets you put cards on top of your library from your hand. That being said, I really hope they print a card that at least gets cards out of hand and into the library somehow because I think it would be really fun to be able to play miracles. With a "shuffle into" effect, you still get the randomness of miracles without the "Well, crap, I got a miracle in my starting hand. Yay, I get to mulligan...." effect. When combined with Ponder this could make for an exciting and interesting Standard instead of a broken Standard.
The flavor text indicates that the Amphin are just emerging into the world at large, from which they have been hidden for a long time. I believe that each core set is supposed to be a "visit" to Dominaria, so this indicates the Amphin are emerging and plotting war during the last visit to Dominaria (M12). Wizards is getting pretty big on flavor continuity, so one would expect to see either the aftermath of this campaign by the Amphin, or the campaign in progress. Further, the flavor text indicates that they have constructed many temple-caves. Combine this with the buy-a-box promo name, Cathedral of War, and what we have is an even stronger indicator that we will be seeing the Amphin as a tribe on our next visit to Dominaria (M13). This does depend heavily on what Cathedral of War does, and what mana colors are required to do it. If Cathedral of War is an Amphin temple-cave, then one would expect that it would do something Amphin specific, or specific to Amphin colors. I say colors because the Salamander creature type is associated with BOTH fire and water in mythology, so we could be seeing a cross color tribe, like Vampires, Humans, Goblins, Merfolk, Fae, etc. Therefore it may not matter what color they specifically identify with, as it seems like they could be competing for supremacy with any possible tribe in Dominaria, provided it is a land-based tribe (Amphin priests eye the shore, and Amphin hunters gird for war). They could be aiming to take on Goblins, Elves, Humans, or any other land-based tribe, but not Merfolk because of the eyeing the shore reference. Perhaps they already overwhelmed the Merfolk, or just don't care about their existence because they want to take land for themselves.
Any way you look at it, I want to thank Alabaster for pointing this out. I remember seeing Amphin Cutthroat and thinking to myself "Huh, I wonder why there is only this one creature," but I never really thought about the flavor text very deeply. Cool line of thinking here, and some intriguing evidence to ponder.
Since the new Ravnica set is likely already mostly designed, I'd vote for the next block. Also, Ravnica is heavily multi-colored, and that doesn't seem like the right place for the Commands.
If they were to reprint the Commands, I'd want it to be, again, in a heaviliy mono-colored block. The Commands themselves are already so versatile, it'd be a shame to sit back and watch many multi-color decks running multiple Commands just because their fixing can take care of it. Cryptic Command belongs in a blue-based deck. If you allow the fixing for cheap, efficient threats in addition to Cryptic Command, you likely end up with an Agro/Control deck that is better at being Faeries than Faeries was.
A Command reprint would belong in the Core set, not in the new Ravnica block. Why would they put something from Lorwyn block into the new Ravnica block? If they were going to put the Command cycle in a block, they would probably all be modified and put into the return to Lorwyn block, which MaRo has said will happen eventually (return to Lorwyn).
I'd rather we see charms come back than the commands. The green, white, black, and blue commands were all fantastic....the red one....not so much. You can tell wizards agrees as it is the only command from the cycle that hasn't been reprinted in some way (and is the only one worth less than a buck). Make a new set of commands but a better balance this time around would be nice.
I agree, the red command was terrible, and on top of that, they just printed a miracle card that does part of what Incendiary does, but better. In fact, the reason that Incendiary command was so bad is that its targeted burn portion only targets players, its mass burn was a pyroclasm, its land destruction was non-basic, and it didn't even wheel of fortune correctly. On top of all this, it cost five mana when it should have only cost four. There were no two abilities on it worth five mana at the same time. I could see something like this being better
Inflammatory Command 2RR
Choose two- Inflammatory Command deals 3 damage to target creature or player; or Inflammatory command deals 2 damage to each creature; or destroy target non-basic land; or draw two cards and then discard two cards.
Though, even like this, I still don't think it would see a hell of a lot of play, and this version is INFINITELY better than the original.
That was a really long response. x_x Using a cryptic to counter a spell and bounce a permanent = insane tempo advantage. That's potentially a two turn time walk. When you add snapcaster mage into the mix you're smacking your opponent back again. In a deck that runs SCM you have to assume that it's strategy is completely different than a deck that would pack Titans in it (at least at 4). Cryptic Command is more versatile and has more reach and when you compare the impact on board state with, say, Primeval Titan. Cryptic Command + SCM gives you the ability to as stated above Timewalk your opponent through counter+bounce, Timewalk your opponet through Counter+Tap down/Fog, net you CA via Counter+Draw, and then do it again with Snapcaster Mage. Is this more devastating than a Titan+Nexus+Wolf Run? No, but it's a hell of a way to fight it.
Props to you for making me rethink that. 1 generic and 5 blue isn't easy to splash, but I'd be willing to bet that a really high blue majority deck wouldn't have any trouble doing that on turn 6 given land support.
I would love for the Commands to get reprinted. Profane, Primal and Cryptic are incredible spells in a standard environment and all serve different purposes for different decks and strategies. They will probably reprint them but I don't know if they would be bold enough to do so with SCM around.
Well, they were bold enough to print Snapcaster at all, so we can only hope they are still feeling wild, haha!
I still think Cavern would interfere heavily with Cryptic's ability to be effective all the time. It is certainly an amazing card, but I think Cavern just weakens any counter spell. It really kinda pisses me off that they are willing to print that, something to so blatantly anti-control, but not print any lands that are that blatantly pro-control. I am just kind of in shock that they are becoming so Timmy enabling. It really makes me sad.
I am glad to see that so many of us advocate the reprint of the commands We should start a petition or something
Dude. SCM and Delver are powerful but the top deck is debatable and two of the top decks don't even use either. Cryptic Command and Counterspell will never exist at the same time, especially when SCM is exists. Cryptic + SCM is better than a Titan. Cavern of Soul's isn't pushing counter spells right out of the format in any format.
If they for some reason decide to say ``Screw you all`` and reprint powerful control magic while SCM exists (This is really unlikely) you can bet that aggro will be getting just as powerful tools (king of like how it already is) so the format would inevitably balance. The scary and format warping problems exist within different concepts. Control magic is put into rotation to not only please players who love it but to help balance things out. When they overdue it with what is the backbone of decks with counters (Planeswalkers, instant speed draw, efficient removal, efficient card advantage engines) is when you start to see a format warp and a pissed off player base or a stagnate meta game. Caw-Blade, for example. Mana Leak and Spell Pierce aren't so powerful they warp formats. But, they're low in cmc and when you combine them with a broken-as-all-hell CA machine like Stoneforge Mystic and Jace the Mind Sculptor+Squadron Hawk's you get a deck that literally blows everything out. Leak and Pierce aren't doing that alone. You understand? I sure hope so.
Of course Cavern isn't pushing counters out of any format. It wouldn't do that. I was saying that with a powerful counter in a format that has a limited card pool, like Standard, you would see that all top decks fall into one of those three categories, essentially forcing anyone wanting to be competitive to own a playset of either the good counter spell, Cavern of Souls, or both. This was their reasoning for banning Jace TMS and Stoneforge. Too many decks in top 8 listings for tournaments that featured those two cards, and not enough decks without them.
It is debatable whether Snapcaster + Cryptic is better than a titan. To understand why, we need to consider some facts.
First, we need to look at mana cost. You pay two colored mana and 4 colorless mana. Snapcaster+Cryptic requires 4 colored mana and two colorless mana. This is a huge difference in mana cost. It is much more restrictive, especially since so many decks want to use good lands that only produce colorless mana. However, suppose you have no problem with the 4 colored mana + 2 colorless (playing primarily blue). Then we need to think about the actual 6 mana cost. Titans are creatures, so will mostly be only cast during your turn. However, part of the point of using Snapcaster is for the ability to drop it on your opponents turn, and flashback an instant. In these terms, Snapcaster + Cryptic as broken is just silly to assert. You need 6 mana untapped on your opponents turn. You would have to plan ahead for this, and while playing a "titan" on your opponents turn would be cool, it is still leaving 6 mana open going into an opponents turn.
Now, let's look at an opponents ability to stop either. The titan's abilities comes built into them, meaning you cannot counter the ability without something like stifle. Even if you do counter the enter the battlefield trigger, you still have to worry about a 6/6 body, and the titans attack trigger. Mind you, this is all one card, so it can be stopped by a single counter spell. Unfortunately, it is all put into a creature card, so is protected by Cavern. Now, let's look at Snapcaster + Cryptic. First of all, suppose that the only other counter spells they allow in the core set (because they reprinted Cryptic) are Essence Scatter and Negate. Assume your opponents has some number of both of these in their deck. While only one of the two can stop a titan, both can effectively shut down Snapcaster + Cryptic. Add to this how late in the game you are actually able to play this out, and you massive increase the chances that an opponent will have the two mana open and the card in hand to stop it. Now, I suppose you can apply the Cavern protection to Snapcaster, which then means that only Negate would be useful, but Negate would still be useful, whereas against a titan, neither would be. Further, you cannot use cards like Surgical Extraction or Crypt Creeper against a titan ability, whereas you can against Snapcaster + Cryptic. Again, we see that in terms of an opponents ability to stop it, titans are stronger than Snapcaster + Cryptic.
Next, let's look at the cards you need to have in your deck. This is simple. A specific titan will take up four slots at most, but Snapcaster + Cryptic automatically takes up double the slots for the same frequency of occurrence. Titans are again stronger.
Now we can look at the abilities themselves. Getting two abilities that you get to choose out of a set of four is definitely better than one set ability. However, the "abilities" of Snapcaster + Cryptic are far more vulnerable than the abilities of a titan. In addition, a titans abilities recur every time you attack with it, whereas Snapcaster + Cryptic's abilities only happen once. This leaves them about equal. However, if you factor in what you get on the board, a 6/6 with a recurring attack ability and a secondary keyword ability versus a 2/1 vanilla, it is clear that titans are better in this respect as well.
Important to consider here is versatility because this does give Snapcaster + Cryptic some major points. Titans can only be used as titans. Cryptic Command is a good card in its own right, as is Snapcaster Mage, and they do not necessarily HAVE to be used together, but can be as an interesting and powerful option. You also cannot normally cast a titan on an opponents turn, whereas you have that option with Snapcaster + Cryptic. Furthermore, most of the time you will already have used Cryptic once, so it is like getting the titans ability before you have the titan on the board.
In light of all of this, I would assert that there really isn't a comparison. Snapcaster + Cryptic is a synergy that can be good, but I wouldn't say broken in terms of its limitations. Titans are good creatures that can swing the game immediately in your favor when they hit the board, but cost 6 mana, so are limited to how quickly they can hit the board. So, I am not sure what you were arguing. Maybe you were saying that you would rather add some Cryptic Commands to a deck in which you were already running Snapcaster, and would choose this over removing the Snapcasters and replacing them with Frost Titans? Clearly the former is the better choice. It is easy to see how silly the comparison is when you put it into these terms as well. Comparing a synergy between two cards to another single card has its uses, but for the most part is pointless because you would use the synergy in some situations, and the single card in others.
I say I think they will reprint Cryptic for one reason and one reason only. I have done this every core set since M10. I want them to reprint Cryptic. However, I think this time there is actually some logic in it happening. The Commands would make a neat spell cycle for the core set. Cryptic would not be overpowered in Standard right now primarily because its mana cost is so high, and so specific. Cavern of Souls further limits its power. They could print the Commands as Mythic, which would make sense flavor-wise, and would keep them from ruining limited events. However, I am more than willing to admit that I may be unintentionally overlooking important aspects of how the Commands might warp Standard because I like them so much.
I fully understand that Mana Leak and Spell Pierce don't warp formats on their own. However, Snapcaster provides all the help they need to warp Standard right now. Since Snapcaster is going to be in Standard for another year, and WotC tries not to ban cards if they don't have to, Mana Leak should go out right now in favor of something that does not play as nicely with Snapcaster. Anyone denying this is suffering from "I like using overpowered synergies to win games" syndrome. That is further why I am advocating for Cryptic Command because it is more likely to help control decks than the tempo-aggro decks that Mana Leak helps.
I think this has actually helped solidify my position. I think the three counters they should print in the Core set are: Negate, Essence Scatter, and Cryptic Command. Those three should breed a pretty fair Standard format. Illusions tribe may get a little out of control over the summer due to getting Cryptic into their arsenal, but they are illusions so it can't get too bad. At the worst it will be a slower fish deck than Delver. I see U/B control getting stronger, and U/W control actually becoming viable again. Everything else will stay pretty much the same because Cryptic is so damn hard to splash into a deck without Vivids + Reflecting pool, or City of Brass, etc. you get the idea.
What does everyone else think about this idea? Would Standard stay balanced with Cryptic and the other Commands?
We will not see Counterspell in Standard because it adds it to Modern. Unless they want to do that, which is unlikely, it will never see print again.
Well, we won't see Counterspell in Standard because many of the higher ups in set design don't like it, and think it is too powerful and unfair. Modern has little to do with it. As other have said, if they release something in Standard which becomes broken in Modern through some unforeseen combo or synergy, they will just ban it. They can do that with pretty much any set because Modern has such a large card pool available that players in that format would be hard pressed to prove that they can't build a deck they like without said card.
That said, who knows what we will get. I think we will likely get Cryptic back, largely because of Cavern. They can then force Cryptic to rotate at the same time as Cavern if it seems like Standard will go south without it. Though, I could be wrong about that too because I am pretty sure that they don't want to see the following being the only winning decks:
Decks with Cryptic
Decks with Cavern
Decks with Cryptic and Cavern.
The printing of ANY powerful counter would likely cause this sort of format warping, and so the likelihood of getting an amazing counter spell is hurt dramatically by this overwhelmingly likely outcome. I would like someone to try to argue that seeing a really good counter spell in Standard would not produce the above. Let me make it more generic so that it is easier to see. ANY really good counter spell in Standard would produce the following as the only winners of most tournaments until rotation of the cards:
Decks with the really good counter spell
Decks with Cavern of Souls
Decks with both Cavern of Souls and the really good counter spell.
So, we either have a broken format for a year, or cards will get banned, and since Wizards is trying to not design cards they will eventually have to ban. I know they haven't been exactly winning at that lately with Snapcaster and Delver, and they may have to ban those, but they may not depending on what is in M13.
I have to wonder what they COULD print in M13 that would balance Snapcaster and Delver in the other colors. It seems like they could just print Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, and Stoneforge, and then invent a red creature to have the two mana slot balanced in all colors, and then come up with some broken ass set of one drops as well, but who thinks that is at all likely? Honestly, I think this is the more interesting question. How can they possibly use M13 to balance out Snapcaster and Delver? What could
we see there? This is what I really want to know.
Removal is tempo gain. So is bounce. Burn is too, either by removal of a creature or lowering your opponents life total. You argued this above in response to epeeguy. So, since these things can be all considered tempo gain, and since they involve removing a creature, temporarily or not, I find it is simpler to call creature bounce temporary removal, which is exactly what it is. Call it soft removal if you will.
Ban the creatures, they never belonged in our color to begin with. Blue has a clear Identity but RnD keep seemingly want to THRUST blue in a ID Crisis similar to what white had back in the Days of OTJ OLS (except instead of a conflicting ID its a synergistic bizarre one). We would be happy with counterspell that's not Rune snag. Also bounce is not removal. Most of the things we want to remove can't be targeted by the bounce anyway. (hexproof)
A synergistic identity crisis? So, WotC prints creatures that work well with blue strategies, and you complain? Ok.... So a creature is only allowed to be blue if it doesn't work well with blue strategies because blue is never ever supposed to play a lot of creatures? I guess merfolk, a part of blue since the very beginning, don't count in this right? Neither do faeries, right? So, let's see. Delver and Snapcaster are both humans, so are bad. Maybe they should have been Merfolk or Faeries, and then it would be totally cool? Not sure what you were trying to prove here.
I know bounce ISN'T removal, but it functions as removal in Delver, which uses it to remove obstacles and undo an opponents turn. If something like Path to Exile were reprinted, it would almost certainly replace Vapor Snag in Delver builds. Vapor Snag serves a certain function for a certain mana cost, and that function is temporarily removing a creature to inconveniencing an opponent. It most certainly does act like temporary spot removal in Delver.
Further, Rites is comparable to Force of Will, with standard the way it is right now. No, you cannot cast Rites for free, but you are also not exiling a card to cast it. Would Rites be better if it only cost U instead of 1U? That could be a possibility, but then Delver would find a way to abuse it because it would essentially be almost as good as Force Spike, and in some situations could be much, much better. I think it is ridiculous for people that play blue in Standard to sit there demanding good counters plus good card advantage, in addition to having two of the best creatures ever made, and pretty decent spot removal (even if Vapor Snag is temporary, it still functions as spot removal in the deck it is used in most). What more should blue get right now? A lot of people act like the loss of Mana Leak without the gain of something essentially identical to it (Rune Snag, in the way it has been said it will work) will ruin blue forever. Maybe WotC, the DCI, and non-blue players are tired of seeing 4 of every top 8 be some kind of blue deck that shouldn't be as strong as it is. I love playing blue. I always have. However, I can see that blue has it REALLY good right now, and could use a little knock down. The question is, why is it so hard for others to see this?
Rune Snag is worse than Mana Leak for the first one, and then better for every following Rune Snag, provided you don't Snapcast any of the ones in your graveyard. So in that respect, Rune Snag is the same or worse I guess.
Quote from Infallible »
Delver's strategy is to advance it's position while setting you back. There is no good spot removal in white so it ops to use Vapor Snag's and Leak's to what is know as `Timewalking` you by basically getting an extra turn over you by canceling whatever you did on your prior turn. These types of decks are not like Aggro decks because they do not still have a late game, and they are no control decks because they typically run out of resources very quickly. Tempo's strategy described in one sentence ; I take one step forward and push you two steps backwards.
Tempo is simply the speed at which things get done, the rhythm of the game as it were. There is an entire article about what tempo is. Setting your opponent back in their time line of things to do on certain turns is then disrupting their tempo. This can be done with bounce, countering, removal, land destruction, discard, or anything else that prevents them from the normal progression of the way their deck is "supposed" to play out its turns. Thus Tempo decks can achieve what they do in many ways. Delver is aggro-tempo, because it (a) utilizes aggressive creatures and combat style and (b) disrupts the opponents tempo. Even RDW can play tempo, say by using burn at the end of an opponents turn after they drop a creature to essentially make the action they took that turn null, though most of the time you want to save most of your burn for after your creatures become ineffective and you need to reach past and end the game. There is an assumption that if a deck is classified as aggro, then the best way to play it is to tap everything out every turn, but I have found that you win more games with aggro decks if you utilize some tempo disruption in favor of going all in all the time.
Quote from Infallible »
^ Rites of Refusal is awful. A two mana counter spell should never require you to discard a card as a conditional cost. Rune Snag is not better than Mana Leak. They are about equal and a lot of the time it comes down to preference. Control uses Rune Snag, tempo uses mana leak as Control wants a late game counter. In the current standard Rune Snag would be more balanced than Mana Leak because of the interaction between it and Snapcaster Mage.
So Rites makes you discard, which you can then play the discarded card from your graveyard with either Snapcaster, or by its own flashback cost if it has one. So the discard is balanced by Snapcaster the same way that the advantage of Rune Snag is "balanced" by Snapcaster. How about decks that would then have the ability to abuse Rune Snag? This can't happen with Rites. Ergo, Rites is the better choice from the perspective of the people that make the sets and have to deal with the fallout when things become unbalanced. Soft counters may be situational, true, but having to discard a card right now is not as bad as it seems. There are many decks that discard absolutely doesn't hurt right now, and even some that it helps. I am just not sure why you think Rites is so awful. You are clearly not thinking about how a huge portion of the decent spells in the format have flashback, and how a large number of creatures can be played from the graveyard by some means or another. I think what is going on here is that you think that Rites would be awful for Delver decks. This is likely true. But seriously, a lot of Delver decks will be reducing the amount of their counter spells anyways because of Cavern. Really, what I see here is that Rites really is FAIR, and people that play Delver are panicking that I might be right.
Mana Leak is not a tempo card, so why should the card that replaces it be any less of a tempo card. Delver is a Tempo deck, not an aggro deck, as aggro really only runs creatures and direct damage spells (maybe a couple of removal spells too). Delver uses cheap blue instants to put their opponent off their tempo, while maintaining pressure by way of cheap evasive creatures so it is clearly a tempo deck.
CA is really poor at the moment in Standard (from what I can tell), so hurting it more would be very bad.
CA isn't poor in Standard. It isn't amazing, like it was with cards like Remand, but it isn't poor. And if you look at Rites of Refusal, it only hurts CA by about 30% (flashback cards), less if you are using it with Snapcaster in the same deck. It actually brings balance to an otherwise unbalanced situation.
I will give you that Delver is a tempo deck, by definition. However, from my experience, it is the bounce that keeps Delver ahead in tempo far more than the counters. For instance, I have seen several top 8 Delver decks that only ran one or two Mana Leaks, whereas if Leak were so important to it maintaining its tempo edge, you would expect to ALWAYS see 3 or 4.
However, Delver is not solely tempo. One major argument about Delver not being aggro is Geist of Saint Traft, arguably one of the more important cards in the deck. That card is extremely aggro. Just because it does not have haste does not mean its sole purpose is not attacking. Geist is clearly in the deck for the very early brutal damage edge it gives. Further, a 3/2 flyer for 1 mana is aggro. Either that or Goblin Guide was totally tempo. So, a deck full of aggro creatures, that uses aggro strategy (early heavy pressure), is absolutely, in no way, aggro? Or is it specifically the evasion that makes it tempo?
Further, I find it questionable that the bounce can even be considered tempo any more than Doom Blade can. Because Delver does so much damage so quickly, the bounce simply acts like virtual removal. Honestly, in the times that I have played Delver, I have only once had to go on to counter a creature that I bounced because the games are usually over by turn 4-5, or over enough that I don't bother. The Mana Leaks usually just end up stopping board wipe or spot removal, so they are really there just to protect the aggro beaters that are winning me the game. BTW, I have yet to actually lose a round at FNM with Delver, and I have been playing it aggro the whole time I have had it sleeved. So, I will concede to it having tempo advantage, if and only if you concede that it is indeed quite aggro.
Further, I am not sure exactly how Rites of Refusal hurts tempo. It has exactly the same mana access as Mana Leak, so does not affect tempo any differently than Mana Leak. The extra cost of discarding cards affects CA, and I suppose through that it affects tempo, but again, we have en environment full of flashback cards, and Delver uses Snapcaster, which gives flashback to any instant or sorcery.
Let's try a little experiment. Sleeve up a Delver deck, and instead of Mana Leaks, sub in Rites of Refusal. See just exactly how much it ruins the deck. I have actually tried it, since this is actually what I expect Wizards to do. It really doesn't slow down Delver much, if at all in most situations.
Rites of Refusal is LESS powerful than Mana Leak, but still operates nearly the same, even more so in the current Standard, and by the time the flashback cards rotate, they will have a new core set to put a new core counter in. I am trying to look at this from their perspective, instead of what I want. Rune Snag would be awesome. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Rune Snag is strictly better than Mana Leak. Period. They don't like Mana Leak because they say it is too much for Standard, so why would they let a strictly better card in. That is living Magical Christmas Set Development land, and WotC is not Santa.
Mana Leak should be replaced by Rites of Refusal. We have a two sets heavily based in graveyard mechanics, namely flashback, so this card is the best and most fair replacement for mana leak that already exists. If played correctly, this functions the same as Mana Leak. Yes, you have to lose a little card advantage. So then whichever card you chose to discard (and hopefully you are making a good choice) will only get to be played once instead of twice. Darn. However, this guy has the added bonus of being MORE relevant late game. This gives you the ability to say "Screw it, I really don't want that going off" and allows you to ditch however many cards you need to make the payoff out of your opponents reach. But then you lose those cards in hand, and can only play them out of your graveyard. So, it weakens Delver slightly (maybe even considerably) by taking some of its early game card advantage, while at the same time actually getting a little better in the mid-game than Mana Leak. This only makes sense because we are working with a Standard full of flashback stuff. This won't strengthen Modern any because the counters in that format are all better than this one, so there is nothing to worry about there. And hell, if they are going to print some crap like Frightful Delusion in a flashback set, and they are planning on taking away Mana Leak, then they might as well be considerate and give us this instead. This is better than Remove Soul, but not quite as good as Leak.
PS. I am also advocating for a Cryptic Command reprint. At 4 cmc, and in light of Cavern of Souls, I don't think it would break the game right now.
EDIT:
Quote from DrWorm »
There are a few different cards that can take it's place (like Rune Snag) in the back catalog, and there is design room for more, but it really must be 2 cmc, poly-targeting, and not result in additional tempo or CA loss on the part of the counter player.
2 cmc, yes. Polytargeting, yes. Not result in additional tempo or CA loss, no. Blue needs to lose either CA or tempo, at least in the early game, so that blue gets out of aggro. Delver is NOT a control deck. Delver is blatantly an aggro deck. Ideally, in Delver, you do not interact at all with your opponents board. This is essentially a Fish deck. Since this (blue aggro) is clearly an affront to everyone's sensibilities, blue's early game needs to be slowed down. Since the tempo is in the realm of Delver, Stalker, Geist, etc. then clearly CA is what should be dented. Thus, Rites of Refusal is a perfect replacement.
I was looking through the various blue stuff in Standard at the moment, and wondered if they could do a variant of Steel Sabotage, except strictly for creatures. That might have to be UU or 2U, since the current "Counter target creature spell" is 1U, and Unsummon is U.
Yeah, Force Spike may or may not be good in the format. I think the concept is sound, in that it is a 1 mana cost-for-1 mana tax. But that might be too efficient. Miscalculation without cycling is probably the next best thing if Mana Leak isn't reprinted. And honestly, that feels like shifting from Terror to Doom Blade to me.
Edit: But, honestly, the more I look at creatures like Fettergeist and Lone Revenant (especially when the latter has a sword or Spectral Flight), the more interesting MUC becomes. And there's Alchemist's Apprentice as an early blocker. I don't know if it's tier 1, but it might be an interesting thing to try at FNM.
That could be pretty cool. UU :Counter target creature spell, or return target creature to its owner's hand. Not too paowerful, multi-purpose, and interesting. It would be really sad if WotC took something like this good idea, and ruined it somehow. Like by printing a land that makes creatures uncounterable. Oh wait, they did just that! I guess there is always Ghost Quarter. I had completely forgotten about Cavern of Souls in this whole discussion of counter spells. ARGH!
I recently had another such moment. I was looking through my Innistrad last night and found Frightful Delusions, which I had initially passed over because it was a three mana soft counter (Force Spike soft no less...). Now, I read it, and though to myself, man, that would be interesting to try, had they NOT put it into a set with a bunch of flashback cards.... Frightful Delusions is exactly the kind of thing that worries me about WotC and their recent hatred of counter spells working at all. With this in mind, I kinda have to wonder if they will replace Leak with anything at all. Why would one print a counter spell that has a discard bonus in a set full of flashback? Why would one print a land that makes creatures uncounterable right before
a new core set in which it looks like one of the fairest options would be to print a creature targeting counter spell? It seems like only someone that wants to cripple counter cards would do things like this. I understand limiting, but crippling is ridiculous. Hell, to make up for all of the control leg breaking they have been doing, they may just need to reprint Cryptic to balance out the balancing they have done. I still think Mana Leak needs to go. I was excited to see it when I found out they were going to reprint it, just like I was excited to see the titans for the first time. Now, I think all these things should go in favor of something new. Why? Because new shakes up the game. Thoughtfully fun, and good to play new stuff changes the entire meta. I think some new stuff would be awesome.
I was actually about to post this EXACT thing. I think it is somewhat fair because it gives you sorting and control, while not being instant speed.
However, it may make miracles too powerful. Now, it does help miracles become playable, whereas right now they really aren't more than a 1-2 of in a deck at the most because of how high the "late game" costs were that they were given. I don't know if Wizards aimed miracles to be more for limited play though to enhance the Helvault opening Avacyn returning experience. I have seen people insist on the quality of the miracle mechanic, but the only one I see as maybe being playable right now (and mind you, only as a 1-2 of) are Temporal Mastery, Entreat the Angels, Terminus, and Devastation Tide, and this is a BIG maybe. The fact that they are almost all essentially dead cards unless you hit them as miracles makes them very undesirable when one considers consistency. To be forced to mulligan because one card in your starting hand cannot ever be in your starting hand to reasonably play it is really terrible consistency. With the exception of Devastation Tide, the regulars costs on the others are either barely playable, or not playable.
So, if it was Wizards intention with miracles to spice up the limited play, then we will likely not see something like this. If they intended miracles for popular play, then they will need a card that gets miracles out of your hand, though not likely right on top of your library, but maybe not so far, necessarily, as the bottom of your library. They could always do something more like:
U
Sorcery
Draw three (or two) cards then shuffle two (or one) card(s) from your hand into your library.
Something like this is more likely, in my opinion. I think if we start putting cards on top of libraries, with miracles, at one mana cost, we WILL be seeing Delver decks taking extra early turns via Temporal Mastery. Yes, Delver decks could already be doing this with Ponder, but not nearly as easily. If you add this card into the mix, Delver decks would likely run both, in addition to 4 X Temporal Mastery. So, then we see something like this become commonplace:
First turn: Island (Or Seachrome), Ponder
Second turn: Island (Or Seachrome, or Glacial Fortress), Delver, Proposed Card putting Temporal Mastery on top
Third turn(a): Reveal Mastery and flip Delver, Draw Mastery and play it, Land, Attack with Delver for 3, possibly play second Delver
Third turn(b): Possibly flip second Delver, Land, Play and equip Runechanter's Pike to original Delver, Attack for 5-8.
And we see that in the course of a single "Third" turn, Delver could easily drop someone to 50% life. This is actually one of the better case scenarios, considering that the originally proposed card would let someone set up a Temporal Mastery on the third turn, fourth turn, or whenever to flat out ensure a kill once the Delver player has an established board. They really only need to draw one to use the proposed card twice, thanks to Snapcaster. So, just on the basis of this example, we cannot have cheap spells putting cards back on top of the library, whether it is at instant or sorcery speed.
It is true that one can just mill the top card after they attempt to set this up, but cheap milling spells are exclusively in blue, thus the ability to stop this synergy is limited to one color, which happens to be the same color that the synergy exists in, which is bad for diversity. I suppose discard could help attack it, but think about the amount of times the Temporal Mastery will be in hand only long enough to go right back on the library.
There are just too many reasons against putting a card in Standard right now that lets you put cards on top of your library from your hand. That being said, I really hope they print a card that at least gets cards out of hand and into the library somehow because I think it would be really fun to be able to play miracles. With a "shuffle into" effect, you still get the randomness of miracles without the "Well, crap, I got a miracle in my starting hand. Yay, I get to mulligan...." effect. When combined with Ponder this could make for an exciting and interesting Standard instead of a broken Standard.
Any way you look at it, I want to thank Alabaster for pointing this out. I remember seeing Amphin Cutthroat and thinking to myself "Huh, I wonder why there is only this one creature," but I never really thought about the flavor text very deeply. Cool line of thinking here, and some intriguing evidence to ponder.
A Command reprint would belong in the Core set, not in the new Ravnica block. Why would they put something from Lorwyn block into the new Ravnica block? If they were going to put the Command cycle in a block, they would probably all be modified and put into the return to Lorwyn block, which MaRo has said will happen eventually (return to Lorwyn).
I agree, the red command was terrible, and on top of that, they just printed a miracle card that does part of what Incendiary does, but better. In fact, the reason that Incendiary command was so bad is that its targeted burn portion only targets players, its mass burn was a pyroclasm, its land destruction was non-basic, and it didn't even wheel of fortune correctly. On top of all this, it cost five mana when it should have only cost four. There were no two abilities on it worth five mana at the same time. I could see something like this being better
Inflammatory Command 2RR
Choose two- Inflammatory Command deals 3 damage to target creature or player; or Inflammatory command deals 2 damage to each creature; or destroy target non-basic land; or draw two cards and then discard two cards.
Though, even like this, I still don't think it would see a hell of a lot of play, and this version is INFINITELY better than the original.
Well, they were bold enough to print Snapcaster at all, so we can only hope they are still feeling wild, haha!
I still think Cavern would interfere heavily with Cryptic's ability to be effective all the time. It is certainly an amazing card, but I think Cavern just weakens any counter spell. It really kinda pisses me off that they are willing to print that, something to so blatantly anti-control, but not print any lands that are that blatantly pro-control. I am just kind of in shock that they are becoming so Timmy enabling. It really makes me sad.
I am glad to see that so many of us advocate the reprint of the commands
Of course Cavern isn't pushing counters out of any format. It wouldn't do that. I was saying that with a powerful counter in a format that has a limited card pool, like Standard, you would see that all top decks fall into one of those three categories, essentially forcing anyone wanting to be competitive to own a playset of either the good counter spell, Cavern of Souls, or both. This was their reasoning for banning Jace TMS and Stoneforge. Too many decks in top 8 listings for tournaments that featured those two cards, and not enough decks without them.
It is debatable whether Snapcaster + Cryptic is better than a titan. To understand why, we need to consider some facts.
First, we need to look at mana cost. You pay two colored mana and 4 colorless mana. Snapcaster+Cryptic requires 4 colored mana and two colorless mana. This is a huge difference in mana cost. It is much more restrictive, especially since so many decks want to use good lands that only produce colorless mana. However, suppose you have no problem with the 4 colored mana + 2 colorless (playing primarily blue). Then we need to think about the actual 6 mana cost. Titans are creatures, so will mostly be only cast during your turn. However, part of the point of using Snapcaster is for the ability to drop it on your opponents turn, and flashback an instant. In these terms, Snapcaster + Cryptic as broken is just silly to assert. You need 6 mana untapped on your opponents turn. You would have to plan ahead for this, and while playing a "titan" on your opponents turn would be cool, it is still leaving 6 mana open going into an opponents turn.
Now, let's look at an opponents ability to stop either. The titan's abilities comes built into them, meaning you cannot counter the ability without something like stifle. Even if you do counter the enter the battlefield trigger, you still have to worry about a 6/6 body, and the titans attack trigger. Mind you, this is all one card, so it can be stopped by a single counter spell. Unfortunately, it is all put into a creature card, so is protected by Cavern. Now, let's look at Snapcaster + Cryptic. First of all, suppose that the only other counter spells they allow in the core set (because they reprinted Cryptic) are Essence Scatter and Negate. Assume your opponents has some number of both of these in their deck. While only one of the two can stop a titan, both can effectively shut down Snapcaster + Cryptic. Add to this how late in the game you are actually able to play this out, and you massive increase the chances that an opponent will have the two mana open and the card in hand to stop it. Now, I suppose you can apply the Cavern protection to Snapcaster, which then means that only Negate would be useful, but Negate would still be useful, whereas against a titan, neither would be. Further, you cannot use cards like Surgical Extraction or Crypt Creeper against a titan ability, whereas you can against Snapcaster + Cryptic. Again, we see that in terms of an opponents ability to stop it, titans are stronger than Snapcaster + Cryptic.
Next, let's look at the cards you need to have in your deck. This is simple. A specific titan will take up four slots at most, but Snapcaster + Cryptic automatically takes up double the slots for the same frequency of occurrence. Titans are again stronger.
Now we can look at the abilities themselves. Getting two abilities that you get to choose out of a set of four is definitely better than one set ability. However, the "abilities" of Snapcaster + Cryptic are far more vulnerable than the abilities of a titan. In addition, a titans abilities recur every time you attack with it, whereas Snapcaster + Cryptic's abilities only happen once. This leaves them about equal. However, if you factor in what you get on the board, a 6/6 with a recurring attack ability and a secondary keyword ability versus a 2/1 vanilla, it is clear that titans are better in this respect as well.
Important to consider here is versatility because this does give Snapcaster + Cryptic some major points. Titans can only be used as titans. Cryptic Command is a good card in its own right, as is Snapcaster Mage, and they do not necessarily HAVE to be used together, but can be as an interesting and powerful option. You also cannot normally cast a titan on an opponents turn, whereas you have that option with Snapcaster + Cryptic. Furthermore, most of the time you will already have used Cryptic once, so it is like getting the titans ability before you have the titan on the board.
In light of all of this, I would assert that there really isn't a comparison. Snapcaster + Cryptic is a synergy that can be good, but I wouldn't say broken in terms of its limitations. Titans are good creatures that can swing the game immediately in your favor when they hit the board, but cost 6 mana, so are limited to how quickly they can hit the board. So, I am not sure what you were arguing. Maybe you were saying that you would rather add some Cryptic Commands to a deck in which you were already running Snapcaster, and would choose this over removing the Snapcasters and replacing them with Frost Titans? Clearly the former is the better choice. It is easy to see how silly the comparison is when you put it into these terms as well. Comparing a synergy between two cards to another single card has its uses, but for the most part is pointless because you would use the synergy in some situations, and the single card in others.
I say I think they will reprint Cryptic for one reason and one reason only. I have done this every core set since M10. I want them to reprint Cryptic. However, I think this time there is actually some logic in it happening. The Commands would make a neat spell cycle for the core set. Cryptic would not be overpowered in Standard right now primarily because its mana cost is so high, and so specific. Cavern of Souls further limits its power. They could print the Commands as Mythic, which would make sense flavor-wise, and would keep them from ruining limited events. However, I am more than willing to admit that I may be unintentionally overlooking important aspects of how the Commands might warp Standard because I like them so much.
I fully understand that Mana Leak and Spell Pierce don't warp formats on their own. However, Snapcaster provides all the help they need to warp Standard right now. Since Snapcaster is going to be in Standard for another year, and WotC tries not to ban cards if they don't have to, Mana Leak should go out right now in favor of something that does not play as nicely with Snapcaster. Anyone denying this is suffering from "I like using overpowered synergies to win games" syndrome. That is further why I am advocating for Cryptic Command because it is more likely to help control decks than the tempo-aggro decks that Mana Leak helps.
I think this has actually helped solidify my position. I think the three counters they should print in the Core set are: Negate, Essence Scatter, and Cryptic Command. Those three should breed a pretty fair Standard format. Illusions tribe may get a little out of control over the summer due to getting Cryptic into their arsenal, but they are illusions so it can't get too bad. At the worst it will be a slower fish deck than Delver. I see U/B control getting stronger, and U/W control actually becoming viable again. Everything else will stay pretty much the same because Cryptic is so damn hard to splash into a deck without Vivids + Reflecting pool, or City of Brass, etc. you get the idea.
What does everyone else think about this idea? Would Standard stay balanced with Cryptic and the other Commands?
Well, we won't see Counterspell in Standard because many of the higher ups in set design don't like it, and think it is too powerful and unfair. Modern has little to do with it. As other have said, if they release something in Standard which becomes broken in Modern through some unforeseen combo or synergy, they will just ban it. They can do that with pretty much any set because Modern has such a large card pool available that players in that format would be hard pressed to prove that they can't build a deck they like without said card.
That said, who knows what we will get. I think we will likely get Cryptic back, largely because of Cavern. They can then force Cryptic to rotate at the same time as Cavern if it seems like Standard will go south without it. Though, I could be wrong about that too because I am pretty sure that they don't want to see the following being the only winning decks:
Decks with Cryptic
Decks with Cavern
Decks with Cryptic and Cavern.
The printing of ANY powerful counter would likely cause this sort of format warping, and so the likelihood of getting an amazing counter spell is hurt dramatically by this overwhelmingly likely outcome. I would like someone to try to argue that seeing a really good counter spell in Standard would not produce the above. Let me make it more generic so that it is easier to see. ANY really good counter spell in Standard would produce the following as the only winners of most tournaments until rotation of the cards:
Decks with the really good counter spell
Decks with Cavern of Souls
Decks with both Cavern of Souls and the really good counter spell.
So, we either have a broken format for a year, or cards will get banned, and since Wizards is trying to not design cards they will eventually have to ban. I know they haven't been exactly winning at that lately with Snapcaster and Delver, and they may have to ban those, but they may not depending on what is in M13.
I have to wonder what they COULD print in M13 that would balance Snapcaster and Delver in the other colors. It seems like they could just print Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, and Stoneforge, and then invent a red creature to have the two mana slot balanced in all colors, and then come up with some broken ass set of one drops as well, but who thinks that is at all likely? Honestly, I think this is the more interesting question. How can they possibly use M13 to balance out Snapcaster and Delver? What could
we see there? This is what I really want to know.
Removal is tempo gain. So is bounce. Burn is too, either by removal of a creature or lowering your opponents life total. You argued this above in response to epeeguy. So, since these things can be all considered tempo gain, and since they involve removing a creature, temporarily or not, I find it is simpler to call creature bounce temporary removal, which is exactly what it is. Call it soft removal if you will.
A synergistic identity crisis? So, WotC prints creatures that work well with blue strategies, and you complain? Ok.... So a creature is only allowed to be blue if it doesn't work well with blue strategies because blue is never ever supposed to play a lot of creatures? I guess merfolk, a part of blue since the very beginning, don't count in this right? Neither do faeries, right? So, let's see. Delver and Snapcaster are both humans, so are bad. Maybe they should have been Merfolk or Faeries, and then it would be totally cool? Not sure what you were trying to prove here.
I know bounce ISN'T removal, but it functions as removal in Delver, which uses it to remove obstacles and undo an opponents turn. If something like Path to Exile were reprinted, it would almost certainly replace Vapor Snag in Delver builds. Vapor Snag serves a certain function for a certain mana cost, and that function is temporarily removing a creature to inconveniencing an opponent. It most certainly does act like temporary spot removal in Delver.
Tempo is simply the speed at which things get done, the rhythm of the game as it were. There is an entire article about what tempo is. Setting your opponent back in their time line of things to do on certain turns is then disrupting their tempo. This can be done with bounce, countering, removal, land destruction, discard, or anything else that prevents them from the normal progression of the way their deck is "supposed" to play out its turns. Thus Tempo decks can achieve what they do in many ways. Delver is aggro-tempo, because it (a) utilizes aggressive creatures and combat style and (b) disrupts the opponents tempo. Even RDW can play tempo, say by using burn at the end of an opponents turn after they drop a creature to essentially make the action they took that turn null, though most of the time you want to save most of your burn for after your creatures become ineffective and you need to reach past and end the game. There is an assumption that if a deck is classified as aggro, then the best way to play it is to tap everything out every turn, but I have found that you win more games with aggro decks if you utilize some tempo disruption in favor of going all in all the time.
So Rites makes you discard, which you can then play the discarded card from your graveyard with either Snapcaster, or by its own flashback cost if it has one. So the discard is balanced by Snapcaster the same way that the advantage of Rune Snag is "balanced" by Snapcaster. How about decks that would then have the ability to abuse Rune Snag? This can't happen with Rites. Ergo, Rites is the better choice from the perspective of the people that make the sets and have to deal with the fallout when things become unbalanced. Soft counters may be situational, true, but having to discard a card right now is not as bad as it seems. There are many decks that discard absolutely doesn't hurt right now, and even some that it helps. I am just not sure why you think Rites is so awful. You are clearly not thinking about how a huge portion of the decent spells in the format have flashback, and how a large number of creatures can be played from the graveyard by some means or another. I think what is going on here is that you think that Rites would be awful for Delver decks. This is likely true. But seriously, a lot of Delver decks will be reducing the amount of their counter spells anyways because of Cavern. Really, what I see here is that Rites really is FAIR, and people that play Delver are panicking that I might be right.
You should have three mana available by the time a titan hits the table if you are playing control.
CA isn't poor in Standard. It isn't amazing, like it was with cards like Remand, but it isn't poor. And if you look at Rites of Refusal, it only hurts CA by about 30% (flashback cards), less if you are using it with Snapcaster in the same deck. It actually brings balance to an otherwise unbalanced situation.
I will give you that Delver is a tempo deck, by definition. However, from my experience, it is the bounce that keeps Delver ahead in tempo far more than the counters. For instance, I have seen several top 8 Delver decks that only ran one or two Mana Leaks, whereas if Leak were so important to it maintaining its tempo edge, you would expect to ALWAYS see 3 or 4.
However, Delver is not solely tempo. One major argument about Delver not being aggro is Geist of Saint Traft, arguably one of the more important cards in the deck. That card is extremely aggro. Just because it does not have haste does not mean its sole purpose is not attacking. Geist is clearly in the deck for the very early brutal damage edge it gives. Further, a 3/2 flyer for 1 mana is aggro. Either that or Goblin Guide was totally tempo. So, a deck full of aggro creatures, that uses aggro strategy (early heavy pressure), is absolutely, in no way, aggro? Or is it specifically the evasion that makes it tempo?
Further, I find it questionable that the bounce can even be considered tempo any more than Doom Blade can. Because Delver does so much damage so quickly, the bounce simply acts like virtual removal. Honestly, in the times that I have played Delver, I have only once had to go on to counter a creature that I bounced because the games are usually over by turn 4-5, or over enough that I don't bother. The Mana Leaks usually just end up stopping board wipe or spot removal, so they are really there just to protect the aggro beaters that are winning me the game. BTW, I have yet to actually lose a round at FNM with Delver, and I have been playing it aggro the whole time I have had it sleeved. So, I will concede to it having tempo advantage, if and only if you concede that it is indeed quite aggro.
Further, I am not sure exactly how Rites of Refusal hurts tempo. It has exactly the same mana access as Mana Leak, so does not affect tempo any differently than Mana Leak. The extra cost of discarding cards affects CA, and I suppose through that it affects tempo, but again, we have en environment full of flashback cards, and Delver uses Snapcaster, which gives flashback to any instant or sorcery.
Let's try a little experiment. Sleeve up a Delver deck, and instead of Mana Leaks, sub in Rites of Refusal. See just exactly how much it ruins the deck. I have actually tried it, since this is actually what I expect Wizards to do. It really doesn't slow down Delver much, if at all in most situations.
Rites of Refusal is LESS powerful than Mana Leak, but still operates nearly the same, even more so in the current Standard, and by the time the flashback cards rotate, they will have a new core set to put a new core counter in. I am trying to look at this from their perspective, instead of what I want. Rune Snag would be awesome. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Rune Snag is strictly better than Mana Leak. Period. They don't like Mana Leak because they say it is too much for Standard, so why would they let a strictly better card in. That is living Magical Christmas Set Development land, and WotC is not Santa.
PS. I am also advocating for a Cryptic Command reprint. At 4 cmc, and in light of Cavern of Souls, I don't think it would break the game right now.
EDIT:
2 cmc, yes. Polytargeting, yes. Not result in additional tempo or CA loss, no. Blue needs to lose either CA or tempo, at least in the early game, so that blue gets out of aggro. Delver is NOT a control deck. Delver is blatantly an aggro deck. Ideally, in Delver, you do not interact at all with your opponents board. This is essentially a Fish deck. Since this (blue aggro) is clearly an affront to everyone's sensibilities, blue's early game needs to be slowed down. Since the tempo is in the realm of Delver, Stalker, Geist, etc. then clearly CA is what should be dented. Thus, Rites of Refusal is a perfect replacement.
That could be pretty cool. UU :Counter target creature spell, or return target creature to its owner's hand. Not too paowerful, multi-purpose, and interesting. It would be really sad if WotC took something like this good idea, and ruined it somehow. Like by printing a land that makes creatures uncounterable. Oh wait, they did just that! I guess there is always Ghost Quarter. I had completely forgotten about Cavern of Souls in this whole discussion of counter spells. ARGH!
I recently had another such moment. I was looking through my Innistrad last night and found Frightful Delusions, which I had initially passed over because it was a three mana soft counter (Force Spike soft no less...). Now, I read it, and though to myself, man, that would be interesting to try, had they NOT put it into a set with a bunch of flashback cards.... Frightful Delusions is exactly the kind of thing that worries me about WotC and their recent hatred of counter spells working at all. With this in mind, I kinda have to wonder if they will replace Leak with anything at all. Why would one print a counter spell that has a discard bonus in a set full of flashback? Why would one print a land that makes creatures uncounterable right before
a new core set in which it looks like one of the fairest options would be to print a creature targeting counter spell? It seems like only someone that wants to cripple counter cards would do things like this. I understand limiting, but crippling is ridiculous. Hell, to make up for all of the control leg breaking they have been doing, they may just need to reprint Cryptic to balance out the balancing they have done. I still think Mana Leak needs to go. I was excited to see it when I found out they were going to reprint it, just like I was excited to see the titans for the first time. Now, I think all these things should go in favor of something new. Why? Because new shakes up the game. Thoughtfully fun, and good to play new stuff changes the entire meta. I think some new stuff would be awesome.