Dovin’s Veto – MTG War of the Spark Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

I love how Dovin’s signature spell involves a bureaucracy term. I could absolutely see him at Hermes’ workplace in Futurama – although I wonder if he would have joined in on the famous song. He didn’t show much of a sense of humor in his interactions with Chandra and Pia, but then again, we’ve never really seen him with his actual friends!

Dovin’s Veto is a simple card, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to say about it. It seems like it should be a very weighty tool for white-blue(-plus) control decks, and it can be – but it might actually be better against those decks, in the hands of aggressive decks that want to protect themselves from mass destruction effects. If, in turn, people start to fear that other decks might have the Veto, you might see a shift towards cards that deal with spells in other ways (when they’re available). Spell Queller and Mindbreak Trap are effective in their own way, but also have certain weaknesses that opponents can take advantage of.

As such, much like a counterspell player holding up mana in a specific game, a card like Dovin’s Veto can have an impact in the mind, when it’s not even on the stack!

Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

Negate with an upside? Sure, why not. Negate has always been a bit of a powerful tool in control decks because of how broad an answer it is, and Dovin’s Veto adds a bit of upside to Negate to make it work better in a mirror match. Double-colored mana is a bit cumbersome (especially different colors), and the upside isn’t the most-common thing to come up, but if you’ve ever wanted that Negate to definitely land, Dovin’s Veto is the card for you. There are still answers to this spell, but they tend to be fewer and more fringe in nature.

Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 3.75
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3
Commander: 4