This is an interesting card. In Limited it's
bound to find a target, but do you want to leave
up 2U in case your opponent plays a good
artifact? I suppose if you could do it in a way
that doesn't broadcast your intent to your
opponent, then sure, why not? It even draws you
a card, so it eliminates one card of theirs for
no card investment of your own. But it does
require you to invest mana, mana you could have
spent on your own artifacts. I guess that's the
eternal conundrum of counterspells. Do you leave
mana up for them, or do you develop your own
board and brace yourself for whatever your
opponent has to drop?
But as counterspells go, I'm not too happy with
this one. If your opponent isn't running
artifacts, it's a dead card. And if they're
running just some artifacts, you have to
anticipate the turn on which they intend to cast
said artifact without leaving your mana fallow
on too many other turns. Negate, by contrast, is
versatile enough that you can usually count on
it, but you'll still find scenarios where the
one card you need to counter with it turns out
to be a creature. Halt Order is going to find
many more such scenarios, having a more
restrictive target requirement, and thus I have
my reservations.
Judging by this card's flavor text, it seems the
financial crisis has spread to Mirrodin.
Fortunately, planeswalkers like you and me can
still get some good value out of a spell like
Halt Order. In tournament play, it may gain more
value as more of the block is released and
artifacts become more common in those types of
decks. For non-tournament play, you'll need to
judge whether there are enough powerful
artifacts to risk the somewhat restricted
targeting requirements. In any event, anything
that gives blue decks without red or green a
potential answer to crazy cards like Sword of
Body and Mind is worth keeping an eye on.
Welcome back readers today's card of the day is
an interesting card to combat the influx of
artifacts in Scars of Mirrodin. In
standard this is strictly a sideboard card if
artifact decks become extremely popular as of
now there is not enough powerful artifacts to
warrant playing this card. In extended once
again a big artifact deck isn't present so this
is a rather mediocre card. In eternal Annul and
straight up hard counters are often a better
alternative to this card, even with the cantrip.
In casual and multiplayer hard counters beat
this situational counterspell, there is plenty
of ways to deal with artifacts I don't recommend
playing this card. In limited I doubt I would
pick this highly or main deck it, but scars has
a plethora of artifacts and this could be used
to counter a bomb artifact. Overall a
situational counterspell that can draw a card,
nothing to write home about.
Today's card of the day is Halt Order which is
a three mana countermagic that only works on
artifacts, but does allow you to draw another
card.
The extremely limited nature of this restricts
it to a sideboard at best unless you know your
local metagame to be really full of artifacts.
Otherwise play some other option whenever
possible and leave this out of your deck
entirely. Even with the card draw you
probably want to counter other spells more than
artifacts and usually they can counter artifacts
too.
For Limited this is quite a bit better as many
cards and quite a few of the big threats are
artifacts and the draw power is a welcome
addition.
Three mana with only one Blue is nice and easily
worked into decks with multiple colors, so there
is little reason to leave this out if the color
is available. In Sealed this should be
played whenever your pool allows and in Booster
if you are drafting Blue this becomes one of
your top picks.
Today’s
Card of The Day is Halt Order from Scars of
Mirrodin. I find this card especially functional
in just about every environment, due to the fact
that a lot of decks run artifacts. It may not be
a main deck card in every format, but it is
definitely a side board card.
The applications for Halt Order in Standard are
obvious, everything is about artifacts in
standard. And being able to counter an artifact
and then draw a card is very nice. Not
necessarily as functional as say a Stoic
Rebuttal, Turn Aside, or even Deprive, but still
very practical if trying to save direct counters
for non-artifact spells.
In casual vintage type play, this is a side
boarder. The mana cost is more than the basic
Counterspell, which would almost always see more
play than a type-specific counter. And for the
exchange of a colorless mana for a blue, Cancel
runs the same mana cost, only can counter
anything. Again, the main difference is the card
draw. But is limiting the kind if spell able to
be countered for a card worth it in casual play?
I say certainly not. In casual play if card
drawing is that important to your deck, there
are plenty of other ways to go about it.
