Lapse of Certainty

Instant

Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of into that player's graveyard.

Discussion (51)

DemonDragonJ on What is Your Opinion of …

5 days ago

Counterspells are a signature ability of blue, and, as such, nearly all counterspells are blue, but WotC does print non-blue counterspells on occasion; there were a number of non-blue counterspells in the early days of this game, before WotC had clearly defined the color pie, but, now that the color pie is better defined, there have been very few non-blue counterspells in recent years.

WotC did print Tibalt's Trickery in Kaldheim, but, prior to that, there had not been a non-blue counterspell since Lapse of Certainty from the Alara block, to the best of my knowledge, so it is clear that WotC is very reluctant to print such cards. Mark Rosewater has even said that he considers both Red Elemental Blast and Guttural Response to be color pie breaks and that white can having "taxing" effects (i.e., making spells more expensive), but not direct counterspells, which I severely dislike, since I believe that non-blue counterspells can be acceptable if they are extremely narrow in their effect.

What does everyone else say about this? What are your opinions of non-blue counterspells? Do you think that such cards should exist, or that counterspells should be strictly blue?

libraryjoy on Balancing my 2 decks against …

1 month ago

Although maybe I'm reading Celestial Dawn wrong, which I could be. So you might disregard that part... There is also Lapse of Certainty which might work against the wave, but only temporarily as they will draw it next turn, so you need to either win right away, or have some way to make it be milled or discarded, neither of which are likely in white - but could be managed with artifacts, although this is getting pretty convoluted to work around a single card. Mana Tithe is another option, but easy to plan around.

Tzefick on Critical Banishment

1 month ago

I really like the idea of more colors getting access to interact with the stack and I really think White is a good color to add some additional design space. Obviously it cannot get on par with blue so it needs some additional conditions or costs associated to get this effect.

I think this is a very good example to fit that space. Nice work.

Just a side note, for the sake of reducing word count could it be written as "... costs less for each spell cast and each ability activated by your opponents this turn." ?

I get the point in being specific about only caring about your opponents' actions but I think it would be consciously misinterpretation of the above line to think it isn't specifically for your opponents' actions.

Why is white a good fit? (wall of text) Show

First of all it seems like counter magic is a vital tool to interact with combo strategies especially when considering the Commander format, and it is the reason we've seen so many "free"-to-cast counter spells especially for Commander and why they drive sales so much. However that is only accessible to Blue, so the rest of the color pie is borderline useless in attempting to interact with most combos. I mean a Silence could work to interact with some combos, but that is such a narrowly applicable card in the rest of the game that it remains a tech card with a heavy drawback. And it might just eat one of the aforementioned "free"-to-cast counter spells and there's not much redundancy available either.

There's a reason why most competitive cEDH decks are including Blue. Coincidentally a lot include Black and Green as well as the three most powerful colors in Magic - at least for single-ton formats.

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White used to have some affinity for artifacts but that seems to have been handed over to blue/red. Right now White is mostly concerned about Equipments within the artifact realm and the synergies are not that widespread nor that powerful.

White used to be the best or on par to deal with artifacts and enchantments with Disenchant and Purify and similar effects but green has mostly taken over in acquiring design space for this mechanic - Bane of Progress Broken Bond You Find a Cursed Idol. The best improvement on the mechanic that white has is Austere Command due to flexibility and Heliod's Intervention to snipe multiple without harming yourself. And that's one of the bigger differences. White leans more on Enchantments and Artifacts than Green does, so Green doesn't have much drawback in including Bane of Progress. Whereas White leans on Artifacts for mana ramp and Equipments and they lean on Enchantments for strong synergies.

White once had their card advantage through ensuring their board survives, either through protection, prevention, regeneration, then shroud to a lesser degree, then indestructible - but only on creatures. However Black has gained exile mechanics, red has "burn to a crisp" mechanics and blue Cyclonic Rift or Curse of the Swine. So indestructible as a safety measure is getting worse and worse. Not to mention they get outdone by Green - again. Only exception is the ever increasing price on Teferi's Protection but that has its drawbacks too - namely you remove yourself from the game and can't interact further - unless you somehow can cast spells without mana from permanents.

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Cards like Rebuff the Wicked or Lapse of Certainty are interesting to expand upon within the design space for white and will grant it back some strengths and uniqueness it used to have. However to be able to properly interact with the stack it cannot just be conditioned behind being the one targeted - that would equate it to hexproof/protection and also make it useless against board wipe or the infamous Cyclonic Rift one-sided board sweep.

Possibly the design space could include some "punisher" mechanics loaned from red but transformed instead of inflicting pain on the opponent, you gain a benefit - for instance:

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Inspection

Instant

Choose target spell or ability an opponent controls. That opponent may have Inspection counter the chosen spell or ability. If they don't, choose one:

• Create three 1/1 white Human Soldier tokens.
• Create two Treasures then gain 4 life.
• Search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them into your hand, then shuffle.

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The flavor being to pass the spell you have to pay the toll (chosen by the Inspector for their benefit) or be rejected.

Taxing is the most recent mechanic that white has expanded upon and embraced but that is usually done on permanents as static or triggered abilities. This means WotC have to water down these cards' immediate impact and make the mechanic less enticing in the short run, which is often when it matters the most. Drawing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben on turn 5+ is often not that impactful, whereas on turn 2 you can cripple some decks. It would be refreshing if WotC would expand on the mechanic for ETBs or instant/sorceries with a here-and-now benefit rather than dragging it out.

Additionally the taxing mechanic could utilize other taxes than just paying mana to do stuff. Inflexibly taxing mana has a good chance to affix unfriendly eyes on you whereas gaining a taxing benefit - say Smothering Tithe is less likely to breed anger toward you but may instill fear.

Anyway, I think it would be good for White to gain a little more design space and I think more colors being able to interact with the stack would be a good thing - even if that means Blue has to share some of their mechanics to a degree with another color.

AShadyZebra on Oswald's Combo Pain (cEDH)

2 months ago

Mana Tithe is a white counterspell that you might find appealing. There's also Lapse of Certainty and Rebuff the Wicked .

For draw, I'd add Ichor Wellspring . Drawing two cards and being a good two-mana stepping stone towards your combo pieces is pretty great. Other cards that come to mind for a combo deck like this are Mind Stone , Lightning Greaves , Illusionist's Bracers , Phyrexian Revoker , Crashing Drawbridge . Treasure Vault can give you infinite sac tokens/colored mana. You also might want to add Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble .

Naksu on Top 5 Counterspells Of All …

3 months ago

I had forgotten Lapse of Certainty , the off color brother of Memory Lapse . Dash Hopes is also fun.

Homelessguy on Top 5 Counterspells Of All …

3 months ago

Withering Boon and Lapse of Certainty . Why? Because,nobody ever expects these cards.

WillYouPayTheOne on Osgir's Scrapyard

3 months ago

Gidgetimer thanks for the tips but I think I'll hold down to at least Lapse of Certainty and Mana Tithe . When I played the deck out of the box I lost mainly because of board/artifact whipe effect and once my artifact got remove from my yard and my field rebuilding is slow when you don't have 2 copies of Sol Ring or my big creatures are removed etc...

I feel it might be incorrect to say that Boros Charm is useless in commander. The card is in 25% of commander decks (yes probably more prominent in sun forger deck but it still has a huge protection on it against whipes).

Gidgetimer on Osgir's Scrapyard

3 months ago

Right off the bat you can cut 2 lands, possibly more after play testing. But 39 is entirely too many.

The white counters are usually not worth it. So Dawn Charm , Lapse of Certainty , and Mana Tithe are another three easy cuts IMO.

Esper Sentinel probably doesn't do enough without ways to pump his power.

You don't really want your artifacts in hand, so Junk Diver and Scrap Trawler could probably be cut.

Meteor Golem is expensive to cast and doesn't seem like something you would want to reanimate with all of the other targets.

Boros Charm usually doesn't do enough in Commander.

Endless Atlas doesn't seem like it would be turned on enough of the time to be worth it.

Illusionist's Bracers is a straight upgrade to Battlemage's Bracers .