Vexing Shusher – Shadowmoor MTG Throwback Thursday (2008)

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Vexing Shusher offers something very simple and, in some metagames, very desirable: never having a spell countered again. Of course, it’s not always as simple as that, as your opponent is occasionally holding more than one counterspell (particularly in Legacy), and not all red and/or green decks like holding up that one extra mana (or more) every turn. But he’s still worth considering, as he’s very hard for any deck that relies on counterspells to stop – it’s an activated ability, and there are fewer things that affect those than for spells. The most inventive use I ever saw with him involved playing him alongside Chalice of the Void without having to modify the deck’s mana curve, as they could use his activated ability to force spells past their own Chalice.

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

A good way to say “no” to someone else trying to say “no”, Vexing Shusher lets you force your spells past countermagic if you have the mana to spare, and it’s even immune to it itself. The body leaves a bit to be desired, and the effect is pretty narrow, but there’s a good amount it can do against the mutual enemy of red and green. Decks that are otherwise soft to disruption can do a lot worse than the Shusher, though be aware that there are still ways to get past its protective magic (like Mindbreak Trap, to give one example).

Constructed: 3 (it’s strictly a sideboard option, unless your local meta is overrun with blue and other obstructive things)
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3 (Goblin and flexible mana cost are both good, but it won’t win you a lot of games on its own)
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander: 3.5

Phat
Pack
Magic
YouTube

Hello everyone and welcome back to Pojo’s Card of the Day! We’re looking at an old throwback that has recently come into prominence and who’s price is starting to spike. Vexing Shusher! So does this guy have some real hushpower or is he all bear and no bite?

This guy is every Timmy’s dream, after years of being told ‘no’ to his fatty boombatty creature he can now force his dreams to come true. This was an interesting design back when Shadowmoor first came out and along with it was another famous spell, Guttural Response , and for good reason, Faeries were decimating the format and something had to be done with how absurdly good Cryptic Command was.

Unfortunately Faeries wasn’t particularly bothered by this guy, sure he couldn’t be countered but he could easily be chomped up by Nameless Inversion and Terror. He also didn’t stop the horde of pinging faeries that could quickly well up on a semi-consistent turn 2 from that haunting deck. For all his charm he simply didn’t provide enough antiCounter Measures to the main threat of the day.

In Shadowmoor Draft this guy simply turns out to be a rare-slot bear in flexible colors. It’s on curve but Shadowmoor was a very greedy draft set and you can get away with a lot more than running mono red so unfortunately aside from value he’s simply outlcassed by many uncommons.

EDH is recently taking notice of this card and the CEDH groups are tentatively looking at it for their uses. There was also a video featuring this card and is one of the main reasons why it’s beginning to spike in price. With Flash getting the banhammer I think more creature based strategies might start popping up and this card is certainly fine in lower powered EDH environments.

In Cube this card might be a pretty powerful bear that makes a viable sideboard strategy in either Mono Green, Mono Red, or in Gruul decks. Countermagic is one of the main banes to their strategy and with Green being able to ramp they can potentially drop this, then Natural Order and pay the cost to prevent it from being countered to blast out a Cratherhoof Behemoth. Sure it’s Magical Christmas Land but Powered Vintage Cube is the place for Christmas, especially with all the fun holiday cards! I’m eager to try this out and see what my playgroup thinks.

Constructed 2/5 – It’s value quickly deteriorates in constructed formats that have powerful removal that gets around it’s anti-counter ability.

Commander 3.5/5 – It’s seeing a price spike for a reason, people are looking at this card, let’s see in a few weeks if it’s justified.

Cube 3/5 – It’s more of a sideboard card than anything but cube unlike constructed, this 2/2 isn’t something you really want to use your removal spells on and for that reason it can be pretty potent.

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