Mana Leak

Instant

Counter target spell unless its controller pays .

Discussion (44)

Balaam__ on Ichorous

2 days ago

Honestly, I’d run 4x Mana Leak in lieu of Annul and Dispel. If you really feel the need for a 1 mana counterspell, run Spell Pierce. The others are much more situational, and while they’re cheaper than Mana Leak it’s unlikely you’ll be playing multiple spells early on and so it doesn’t really matter. Now if you only play casually and know the makeup of your friends’ decks, then that might be different; otherwise cut 4 Annul and 4 Dispel for 4 Mana Leak, 2 Spell Pierce and 2 more Throne of Geth.

Tzefick on Vanish into the Void

3 days ago

As for the card itself: Obviously granting counter spells to all colors is in itself a dangerous thing to do but this one is also made cheaper by the size of the spell it wants to counter. Normally counter spells are made to be a likely tempo win, being cheaper to counter most smaller things or like Mana Leak it can deal with small stuff early in the game but the longer the game drags out, the more likely your opponent can naturally pay the cost to not have their spell countered - but it is still a mana tempo win, although marginal.

This follows a completely different logic, almost the complete opposite. The larger a spell, the less you have to pay to counter it. This is going to be a salt meter adding card where people who wants to play big spells gets shafted really really hard and it's possible for any color to include this colorless counter spell. Meanwhile those who plays small spells are safe from getting countered because the cost is astronomical to counter a MV 1-3 card.

Additionally the way you have attempted to balance this card is exclusively through mana cost - and I know that's been the go-to in the past. Something that especially for Commander is less a problem for certain colors due to mana ramp, and/or mana doubling, meaning the drawback hits differently between the colors.

If we should see another colorless counter spell (not colorless as in Warping Wail) I think it should be a lot more similar to Mana Leak than Disdainful Stroke in concept and perhaps the drawback should be more thoughtfully designed.

With that being said I hope we wont get flexible colorless counter spells. I do hope more colors gets to interact with the stack in the future to increase overall interaction instead of mostly hoarding that segment of the game for blue's counter spells. We've seen a few attempts in white recently, so we're starting on that journey but also only starting (although please WotC don't make more catch alls like Teferi's Protection - that card does a little too much).

Balaam__ on Pauper Faeries

2 weeks ago

Izzet Boilerworks is the weak link in your mana base. If it either didn’t enter tapped or else didn’t bounce a land, it would be great—but in actuality it’s like skipping a turn as far as mana generation is concerned. An opponent with a fast Pauper deck will pull ahead because of that, despite the advantage of gaining for all subsequent turns. You’d fare better with either something like Highland Lake or else just 2x more basic mountains. Aside from that, I’d suggest Lofty Denial as an even better Mana Leak, although you’re fairly good with countermagic as it stands.

StoryArcher on Modern Dimir Mill & Dauthi …

1 month ago

Caerwyn

The version of the deck you're talking about (well, MY version of the version of the deck you're talking about) can be found below. I think it's pretty strong right now, though any specific recommendations would be welcome - there are a number of other options I'm considering for those Maddening Cacophony slots, including Thought Scour, Mind Funeral, Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Tome Scour. I was also trying to decide whether the Thoughtseize / Inquisition of Kozilek suite might provide better value than Mana Leak / Counterspell.

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Mind Rape

Modern StoryArcher

12 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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I'm in agreement with you about Fraying Sanity, the trap of 'win more' is one I'm always on the lookout for. On the other hand, I've found value in the past of building a deck with more than one way to win, and backdooring a legitimate option through damage isn't something I want to discount right off the bat. Judicious use of the sideboard can allow you to shift the deck towards one option or the other in the 2nd & 3rd game, depending on what you're seeing across the board. Jace's Phantasm and Dauthi Voidwalker are excellent options in that regard and you can get some crazy value out of those mills for the latter.

zapyourtumor on Harvey Dent, Attorney at Law

1 month ago

With Steam Vents, I don't think Skred is worth running here. Also, removing Skred would let you run more duals/fetch for shocks more often, which would let you run Counterspell instead of Mana Leak.

TheBubbaEA on Narset’s Nightbound Moon

1 month ago

Katzmania My justification for Mana Leak is the blue, yeah. Because we are playing Snapcaster, we need only 2 blue sources to flashback Leak, but need 3 for counterspell and then Cryptic was in the list a bit ago but the UUU was a wild hit. I do think maybe CC should be somewhere in here actually. So instead of a Leak maybe a cryptic makes sense.

There are 9 Fetches right now. To accommodate Counterspell and Cryptic over Mana leak, how many more fetches do you think are needed?

Katzmania on Narset’s Nightbound Moon

1 month ago

Why Mana Leak instead of better spells like Counterspell, or something like Cryptic Command? Feels like your counterspells could be optimized, and if the second blue mana is a problem, running a more fetch based land base?

Balaam__ on

1 month ago

Deck is coming along. It’s probably a good idea to run a suite of counterspells particularly if you’re running spirits that don’t have exile effects built in. I’d run 4 Mana Leak without question, but that’s me. If you feel confident running fewer, by all means do so. Not trying to take over your deck.

A quick idea though is to replace Unsummon with Vapor Snag; it’s strictly better and just as inexpensive.