I have seen this card played exactly once. The
player casting it dumped all their mana into it
and used it for lethal damage. There was nothing
his target could do-- even if he paid the X, the
damage would still happen and end the game
before his spell resolved. This style of
counterspell tends to be unwieldy, but effective
at actually stopping spells. Mindswipe's damage
rider means that even if your opponent can
afford X, you still get some value out of the
counterspell. It also rewards play in a fairly
aggressive deck, since you want the X damage to
be relevant, possibly even game-ending. Very few
decks have a way to stop this damage, short of
their own counterspell, and taking a spell's
controller to 0 life is probably the best way to
"counter" it.
Today's card of the day is Mindswipe which is a
Red, Blue, and X instant that counters target
spell unless they pay X plus it deals X damage
to them. This is a very solid spell as
even with four mana available it deals two
damage and can counter, though it works much
better at five mana or more. As a middle
to late game option this has value and
efficiency for an Izzet deck or other builds
using Blue and Red, particularly if heavily
spell based. It is likely to see play in
several formats, though how competitive it can
be depends on the strength of Blue/Red as the
metagame shifts.
In Limited this is a fantastic card that has two
beneficial effects at the same time for a
reasonable cost. Either aspect would be
underpowered by itself, but combined it is a
strong first pick in Booster and serious
consideration for the color pairing or splash in
Sealed.
Once again, this is a simple stapling-together
of two effects which results in a relatively
unique threat. At least it actually helps end
the game faster, unlike most Power Sink-style
effects. If you're careful, you can almost
always engineer it so that your opponent can't
pay X with cards like this (yes, really) and
that means a lot of extra damage in the late
game. There aren't really the tools in Standard
for a deck that counters most spells and burns
the opponent to death, but in environments where
there are, this is an interesting addition to
their card choices.
