Essence Scatter

Instant

Counter target creature spell.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

BioProfDude on Thousand Years of Phoenix

7 months ago

I think Sprite Dragon is just better than Storm-Kiln Artist. With this many instants and sorceries, you should probably run 4 of them. I think also putting something like Essence Scatter into at least the sideboard would be wise as there are sooo many creature decks running around right now in Pioneer. At least a couple of Fading Hopes and/or Stern Dismissals (a great answer for Fable of the Mirror-Breaker  ^Flip).

Cool deck! +1 from me!

DreadKhan on Flying into the Chasms

8 months ago

I gather you are looking for suggestions in the area of counterspells? I suspect you might consider whether you usually need to counter creature or non-creature spells, as there are Negate and Essence Scatter at 1U, as well as An Offer You Can't Refuse for a mere U. As you're in mono-Blue, if you didn't mind upping the budget a bit there is Counterspell, which is a fine card in many ways if not really suited to more competitive arenas.

Pretty out there, but Spiketail Hatchling, Spiketail Drakeling, and Spiketail Drake can all be sacrificed to counter an opponent using fairly large spells/effects, especially stuff like wipes. There is also Judge's Familiar to help with this, but it's more narrow. You mainly use these guys to protect something more important, including to counter an opponent's board wipe.

If your games tend to go pretty long, Gargoyle Castle can be useful, a 3/4 flyer trumps a Delver. The key is that it uses a land slot to be potentially a very solid body. There is also Mishra's Factory that can offer you a body, with Mishra's Factory being very hard to deal with as it's only a creature on your turn, and you don't have to summon it, so it blanks a lot of solutions and saw play in control decks historically for these reasons. I mention these two because you run a decent number of lands, perhaps you wouldn't notice having some colourless lands with so many Islands, and could benefit from some situational bodies.

Vicarian on Raffine Metaschemer

8 months ago

Stern Dismissal I wouldn't bother playing too many of. That's highly situational, and could help you get lethal damage through by bouncing a critter. It's also not a counterspell. In a similar vein, Essence Scatter is useless if you're going up against a control player (who play very few, if any creatures, and the ones they do play usually come with the "Can't be countered" ability). See Chromium, the Mutable, Hullbreaker Horror, etc. If your meta is creature heavy, then by all means. Though I do have a preference for counterspells that exile instead of having the spell hit the graveyard. Ertai's Scorn is really useful in matchups against burn, or against fast aggro decks, but again is situational. If Lilly is your bane, then you could consider Negate which is effective against walkers for 2 CMC.

Titus7007 on Raffine Metaschemer

8 months ago

Vicarian thanks for checking it out.

What do you think of cheaper counter spells like Essence Scatter and Stern Dismissal over Dissipate and Ertai's Scorn?

wallisface on Burn/Control

10 months ago

Some thoughts:

• the idea of mixing control and burn is going to be a very difficult tightrope to navigate, because both these ideologies want different things. Control wins by gaining incremental card-advantage, and generally needs a game to go long to pull-ahead. Burn on the other hand doesn’t typically care about card advantage, and will usually waste all their cards haphazardly in an attempt to win the game as soon as possible (and before the opponent can stabilise).

• From a control standpoint, i’d recommend against stuff like Blink of an Eye (it gives you card disadvantage), Essence Scatter (its application is too narrow, Mana Leak is better 99% of the time), and Ionize (its just too weak/ineffective when soo many good 2-mana counterspells exist, including Counterspell).

• From the burn standpoint, i’d suggest ditching cards like Goblin Electromancer (you have almost no spells that benefit from this, and in any case its a creature for combo decks), Guttersnipe (its very slow, and waaay weaker than it might read), and Imperial Recruiter (again, too slow for burn. Also messes with cobtrol tempo).

• cards that could help you here are Dragon's Rage Channeler and Delver of Secrets  ^Flip. Both if these cards can come into play cheaply, which lets you hold up mana for countermagic, and they both become fairly aggressive quickly. You’ll prolly want Mishra's Bauble to help enable the Channeler.

LeonSpires on How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

1 year ago

Your commander has a good effect but he costs 7 mana. I would suggest running more 2 CMC mana rocks to make it so you can more consistently cast him. Start with Fellwar Stone, Rakdos Signet, Izzet Signet, Talisman of Creativity, Talisman of Dominance, and Talisman of Indulgence.

Also Essence Backlash and Essence Scatter are very narrow counterspells. Some less narrow sounterspells for you to consider would be Negate, Drown in the Loch, and Delay.

TapatioDorito on The Senate's Second Sun

1 year ago

Hey, DeVerbalen, thanks for the feedback! Right now I'm taking this deck and upgrading it in steps, and most recently I did tweaks to my mana base. Supreme Verdict looks great, and I'll go for that next. Essence Scatter was mostly to avoid color restrictive creature countering, but Counterspell is definitely something I can slot in instead.

How many copies of Teferi, Time Raveler would you suggest?

DeVerbalen on The Senate's Second Sun

1 year ago

Nice deck! I would exchange Day of Judgment for Supreme Verdict just because its better in every single way. You might also want to add Teferi, Time Raveler to put a big restraint on your opponents "reactability". And lastly, why not exchange Essence Scatter for Counterspell?