The Secret to Good Counterspells Is Imperfection

Counterspells can be annoying to play against. These effects, here named after the iconic card from Magic: The Gathering but most common in take-that games, negate an opponent's action. They play a card, you play a counter, and nothing happens. The frustration and slowdown in game progression that counterspells bring lead many players to loathe take-that games. But the problem is not counterspells themselves; it is that they are too clean a solution. Counterspells fail when they undo what was done and leave the game exactly as it was, denying both agency and skill expression. The solution is to make them a little messier.

Messy counterspells come in two varieties. Overcounters are more expensive than the things they counter, but provide the user with another advantage. Undercounters are cheaper than the things they counter, but have downsides to their use. Both types challenge users to identify situations where they can maximize upside or minimize downside risk.

A good example of an overcounter is the "Dancing Blades" unit in Duelyst 2. It costs 5 mana to bring into play and deals three damage to the space in front of it, enough to kill most weaker 1-3 mana creatures. Even though it costs more than what it removes, it also has strong stats that make it a threat in its own right. Duelyst 2 also has many examples of undercounters, such as "Martyrdom," which can destroy any unit for just 2 mana but heals the enemy general for that unit's health. Duelyst counters don't just cancel an opponent's action; they leave something new behind, changing the state of the game.

The key to counterspells in Duelyst 2 is that they have a static cost, which means that it is possible to get better or worse trades depending on how you use them. By contrast, Mage Wars' counterspells are precisely balanced against their targets. Dissolve costs the same as its target equipment, and dispel costs the same as its target enchantment. These two spells were so widely used that they needed new copies printed in expansions so players could have enough for all their spellbooks.

Perfect counterspells are like wildcards; they are matched to every situation, and therefore, there is no skill in deploying them properly. If a counterspell costs the same as what it targets, that is a bad sign because it denies players the opportunity to demonstrate skill in choosing the right time to use it, since using it is always a good choice.

Perfect counterspells stall the game by returning to an earlier state. A messy counterspell negates your opponent's action but also adds its own side effect, progressing the game in a different direction. Having your actions thwarted is not as bad as having them erased.