Vex

The cleanest counterspells trade one-for-one: their spell for yours, both gone, the exchange neutral. This one builds a refund into the deal but defers the cost rather than imposing it up front. Counter the spell, and its controller may draw a card to replace what they lost, so the effect sits closer to a tempo play than to card advantage. That concession is what buys the discount. Instead of Counterspell's double-blue demand, this asks only a single blue alongside two generic, the kind of price a deck splashing for permission can actually meet. The structural logic descends from cheaper counters that attach a rider: Force Spike taxes the opponent's mana in the present, while here the tax is paid in the future, as a card you hand back to the player you just stopped. The wrinkle is who holds the option. The draw is optional ("may"), but the choice belongs to the controller of the countered spell, not to the caster of this one, and a free card off the top is rarely declined: that is precisely the problem. When you most want to say no, the game is usually deep enough that refueling the opponent costs you real ground, and against a full grip the giveaway compounds turn over turn. The card never escaped that tradeoff into broad play, which is the honest read on permission that pays the enemy for the privilege of saying no.