Plasm Capture

The counterspell that pays you back, and the way the refund is structured tells you exactly who it was built for. Mana Drain, the obvious ancestor, hands its burst back as colorless mana at the beginning of your next main phase, scaled to the countered spell and sharp enough to power out a turn-ahead threat. This makes one deliberate concession for a broader payout. The size is conditional: you get mana equal to the countered spell's mana value, so countering a six-drop leaves you six mana while countering a one-drop makes the refund a footnote. Mana Drain has the same scaling but routes the mana toward colorless; here the refund comes in any combination of colors, which is the quiet generosity. The any-color clause fixes as well as ramps, and that matters far more in a three-or-more-color deck than the raw count suggests. The price for stapling ramp onto a hard counter is steep up front: four mana with a double pip in each of two colors, which is a real ask to hold open. The mana arrives at your next first main phase, the same window where you would cast a big threat, so the refund still ramps you into your top end rather than enabling a same-turn play. It rewards a controlling ramp deck that wants to answer the threat and then out-resource the table, treating the counter as a resource investment rather than a tempo swing.