Pointed Discussion

Pretty powerful. Counter target spell unless it's controller pays X, but with a nice bonus.

empty peoples mana pool so they can't use circle of protection.

the power sink trap

this card drives me nuts!! powerful and leaves your mana tapped...your summon or spell undone..ughhhh then they untapped all the mana they spent on their turn after you. great card

The best Counterspell with X in mana cost !

If you can't counter Omnath, Locus of Mana, power sink whatever comes next to keep him puny.

this is the best card in the world against the staff of domination/metalworker artifact deck combo that has pretty munch unlimited floating mana

certainly a good card, but I don't think you guys realize that they can just pay the mana. it doesn't beat metalworker, i.e., since they can just pay the mana and then it doesn't empty their pool.

There was an article on Wizards that explained how the change in rules that converted interrupts to instants (I think it was 6th edition) made this card much less powerful. The way I understand it is that, because interrupts resolved before any more instants could be played, this meant the opponent could only respond to this spell with other interrupts and otherwise couldn't use any mana later in the resolving order to cast instants or use non-interrupt abilities.
For example, let's just assume we both have a ridiculous amount of mana open. I hit you with a burn spell that would bring you down to 0 life. You respond with a Reflect Damage, and you're holding another one with just enough mana left open to cast it, but I Power Sink the first one for 6. Under the new rules, you can simply respond by casting your other Reflect Damage, and it will resolve before my Power Sink does. Under the old rules, however, the Power Sink would resolve first and you would have to tap out right away, leaving you unable to cast your second spell.
So that's how this card was intended to be used - to effectively freeze the stack and ensure that you have the last word. Making it an instant makes it much less useful, though it still retains some of its old value if you use it to counter a sorcery or creature spell.

So basically all interrupts had split second then? (fitting that split second appeared in the nostalgia themed set).

As opposed to other "Counter unless they pay ___" cards, this one actually gives them no choice.
Even if they would rather lose the spell than pay the mana, they're screwed. Play this during your opponent's first main phase, and enjoy the lack of combat tricks and shenanigans for the rest of the turn.

@djflo
This could always counter instants since its first printing so not sure what you're trying to say when you said "This can NOW counter instants"

@achilleselbow
They could have easily retained this card's intended effects by giving it Split Second but I guess they decided not to? I have no idea.

Too bad really, pretty much like a Counterspell and Mana Short rolled together if you have mana advantage.

Combos with manabarbs

@ChannelBlaze,
"certainly a good card, but I don't think you guys realize that they can just pay the mana. it doesn't beat metalworker"

Well, if you're playing a Power Artifact and Basalt Monolith combo (+/- Mana Reflection), it is easy to make the mana cost too absurdly high for others to pay.

Hey, I got a question about this card
If I play it with Sapphire Medallion and use e.g. 5U for it.. does that mean the spell's cost is 6U and the opponent should pay 6 colorless mana?
Thanks in advance!

@achillesbow - all that is true, but you neglect to mention one thing - this can now counter cards that were (or would have been) interrupts.

However, I agree that in general it's not as amazing as it used to be, though just stopping an opponent for a turn is quite amazing.

@Forumbrowser, thanks for pulling me up. I should have said all instants, meaning to include cards that were interrupts.

And I thought Black was Evil...