Supreme Will

The whole pitch is in the word "Will": you almost never want both halves, but you almost always want one of them, and that asymmetry is what keeps a soft counterspell from feeling dead. Mana Leak taxes for too, but Mana Leak rotting in hand against a topdeck is the oldest disappointment in blue control. Bolting the modal clause onto the counter rewrites the late-game floor: when there is nothing left to counter, the same card digs four deep for the answer or the threat you actually need, then buries the chaff on the bottom of the library. That second mode is closer to a tightly tuned dig than to raw card advantage; you see four, keep one, and ship the other three to the bottom rather than the graveyard, so the selection costs library position instead of a card. The design lesson here is about variance management rather than power. A hard answer is only good when the game presents the question; a selection spell is only good when you have already drawn the question and need the answer. By stapling them together at instant speed, the card guarantees it is never a blank, which is precisely the failure state every reactive blue spell is built to avoid. The price for that flexibility is that neither half is best-in-class: the counter leaks, and the dig is not a draw. Modality buys consistency, and consistency is what blue control has always been willing to pay a premium for.