Test of Talents

Surgical hate for the single-spell strategy, aimed squarely at the stack. Most counters trade one-for-one and let the opponent redraw the same threat later; this one follows the counter with an exile clause that hunts every copy of the countered spell across their graveyard, hand, and library. Against a deck leaning on four copies of a specific instant or sorcery (a ritual, a tutor, a burst-mana enabler, a key combo half), that turns a single answer into a strip mine of the whole plan: counter the first cast, then confiscate the rest before they can be drawn to. The refund is the piece that keeps the effect honest, and it belongs to the person losing the cards, not the caster: stripping a hand normally hands the victim brutal card disadvantage, so the countered player draws one for each card pulled from their hand, softening the blow to redundancy rather than sheer count. The narrowness that pays for the power runs deeper than the counter's price. It only bites when the same name appears more than once, and only ever touches instant or sorcery spells: it does nothing to a creature, a planeswalker, or a toolbox of singletons. That conditionality is the entire design. An answer that is either devastating or merely a slightly overcosted counterspell, depending entirely on how much the opponent has committed to repeating themselves in one card type.