Wash Away

Cleave splits this into two counterspells that share nothing but color and name. At its printed cost it is a single blue mana with a razor-thin window: it answers only spells that were not cast from a hand, which means cascade hits, flashback casts, spells launched off a library, anything conjured from exile or a graveyard. That is a hyper-narrow reactive tool, closer to a hoser than a clean Counterspell. Cleave it and the bracketed restriction disappears, leaving an unconditional counter for any spell at three mana. The design turns modality into a question of self-reference: most split counterspells fork on what they hit, but this one forks on how much of its own text still applies once you pay the higher cost, using the removal of its own words as the mechanic. The choice defers all the way to the moment you have both the mana and the read. The gap between one mana and three is the price of certainty. You either bet the threat you are worried about arrives from somewhere other than a hand, or you spend the full amount and stop caring where it came from.