This is enormous. If you've got Metalcraft, this
card is functionally identical to Counterspell,
that legendary precursor to modern countermagic
that fell from grace when Wizards decided it was
too powerful. There's no way people will pass up
the chance to tap into that kind of power these
days. Unfortunately, if you don't have
Metalcraft, it's functionally identical to
Cancel, which sees almost no play in any
scenario where people can avoid it. But will the
possibility of a legendary counterstrike be
worth the risk of being stuck with inferior
ordinance to level at opposing spells? Well, the
existence of Trinket Mage, Grand Architect, and
Riddlesmith leaves me confident that someone
will build a blue deck that easily achieves
metalcraft. I've seen one or two at my local
FNM. So I'm confident in my assumption that
Stoic Rebuttal will show up at top tables fairly
frequently over the next two years.
After years of two blue mana being too cheap
for "Counter target spell" in new sets, we now
have a card with that exact game text that
sometimes costs two. How quickly things change.
Stoic Rebuttal is a twist on metalcraft which
you probably could have predicted before the set
was released, although it requires a fairly
specialized deck to operate at full power and
efficiency. Whether such a deck emerges remains
to be seen, but a lot of people will be tempted
to make one so they can use this card.
Today's card of the day is Stoic Rebuttal which
is a three mana countermagic unless you have
three artifacts in play to trigger the
Metalcraft effect. Having the same cost as
Cancel allows it to replace that in decks that
have several artifacts and potentially cost less
with no drawback. It works well in
artifact based control decks and readily turns
into a Counterspell in the early game.
However, even in that build Deprive can
potentially be better in certain situations or
as support which leaves Stoic Rebuttal with
slightly less room to truly shine.
For Limited keeping two Blue mana untapped may
be more difficult in the format than having
three artifacts, but being able to counter any
spell is a very useful effect to have available.
Not a first or second draft pick, but worth
pulling after settling into Blue as your primary
color in Booster and if your Sealed pool is
strong enough to focus on Blue.
