There's nothing more frustrating about Magic: Gathering than falling victim to blue's most annoying trick: Counterspell. Blue's entire color identity is about controlling the flow of the game and manipulating the battlefield and players' hands through magic. For a relatively low cost, a blue player can counter almost any spell no matter how expensive it is, essentially making the spell a waste of time and mana. This is what makes any counterspell counter so damn satisfying. Although Spiderman set he doesn't have a ton of interesting cards, Spider Punk stands out as an elite red card that is viable in most game formats, mainly because of one ability: spells and abilities cannot be countered. As long as it remains on the board, it essentially disables counterspells across the board. At four-player Commander tables this makes a huge difference.
But move away from Spider-Punk, aka Hobart “Hobie” Brown, because there's a new anti-spell troll – or rather, anti-spell boggart – in the game. WITH world debut upcoming Lorwyn eclipsed The game takes place on January 5th. Wizards of the Coast reveals a goblin sorcerer named Hexing Squelcher.
Hexing Squelcher is a 2/2 that costs one colorless and one red mana. It cannot be countered and has a defense cost of Pay 2 Life, so it cannot be targeted by any spells unless the caster gives up two life. But it also has the inscription “Spells you control cannot be countered” and gives the same protection to other creatures you control. (The title Hexing Squelcher seems like an obvious riff on Annoying Shusher from Shadowmoor set, a red-green creature that, for the cost of one red or one green mana, can make a target spell impossible to counter.)
Compare this to Spider-Punk: it's a 2/1 with the same cost. It disables tokens for the entire board and makes it so that damage cannot be prevented. It also has a riot (it comes in with a +1/+1 counter or speed) and gives all your spiders a riot.
Due to the limitations of Spider-Punk's ability to grant Riot (it only affects Spiders), it works best in a Spider-centric deck. And since it is a legendary creature, this only further limits its potential. In Commander, where you can only have one unique copy of any card in your deck anyway, Legendary doesn't really matter. But in more traditional game formats, where a deck can have up to four copies of a card, Legendary means there can only be one version of a card on the board at any given time. Even this isn't that big of a deal considering both cards disable counters as a common effect. But Hexing Squelcher makes it so that “spells YOU control” cannot be countered, whereas Spider-Punk does it for ALL spells. And if you're feeling too redundant, you can fill your board with Hexing Squelchers to ensure your opponent never counters one of your spells again. Even if they take out up to three of them, as long as one remains on the board, you're safe from the torment of a counterspell.
This difference is most noticeable in four-player Commander. In this scenario, Spider-Punk will help at least two opposing players, while Hexing Squelcher will only help you. And since Goblins are such a common and popular creature type, Squisher will soon become a vital component in almost every Goblin deck going forward. Heck, it's worth including in almost any deck, even if it's red. It will be interesting to see how it can be incorporated into pro-level decks, especially where blue-red remains the most popular color combination.
The Magic scene is currently awaiting the grand debut of Hexing Squelcher when Lorwyn eclipsed Play Early events will be held at local game stores from January 15 to 22, with a full release on January 23.
