Pointed Discussion

Pretty Cool

With mana burn gone this card just gained a whole lot more potential.

Trust me, the oldschool version of this also had a lot of potential despite the existence of mana burn.

This is a fair version of Mana Drain

with sensei's diving top and counterforce, this card got a lot better with the rules in casual

Not to mention a much more affordable version of Mana Drain ha
(money wise, not casting cost)

A reprint of mana drain, sort of. It's a good try.

Not bad, but too situational. You need a reasonably big spell to counter, the four mana open to do it, win the clash and then have something to play with it (and hope the opponent doesn't have a counter).

im giving this four stars. today's magic says counterspell should be 1UU, and counterspell + X should be uncommon and 2UU unless X is something stupid good. this is way better than counterspell + X, but not strictly so because of the drawback. as everyone noticed, its poorman's mana drain the way brainstorm is poor man's ancestral recall...or poor man's Jace TMS nowadays, I guess :P

@djflo: of course its situational. almost all the best cards are 'situational', but then get put into decks that tend to force that situation to come up. not having too many 'strictly better' cards keeps the game alive. i like this better than Mana Drain for that reason...and because I can afford it :P

i also like the flavor of clashing over a mana-ramp. that just seems awesome for some reason.

HADOUKEN!!!!

A fixed Mana Drain that also lets you scry 1. Yay.

The spells you most want to counter are generally the big expensive ones, anyway. And if you reveal an expensive card yourself to win the clash, hey, look, you just got the mana available right after you draw it. No, it's not as good as Mana Drain, but then, nothing is.