Horribly Awry

A two-mana counter that cannot be paid through, scoped to exactly the spells aggressive decks live on. The mana value 4 or less clause is the whole bargain: it can never touch a top-end finisher or a reanimation payoff, only the early curve that an opposing creature deck is trying to land on schedule. In exchange for that ceiling, it offers the cleanest possible answer beneath it, exiling rather than killing so there is no graveyard to recur from, no body to bring back, no second life for whatever it stops. That exile rider is why it outclasses the soft tempo counters it superficially resembles: those buy a turn, this one removes a thread of the opponent's plan permanently. The devoid frame is doing quieter work, letting a blue counter read as colorless for any card that cares about color, though the cost still demands blue mana to cast. It sits in a narrow band of design: a counterspell honest enough that it answers half the spells in any given game and nothing important in the other half, the kind of conditional that rewards a deck built to win before the conditions stop mattering.