Counterpoint
Instant
Counter target spell. You may cast a creature, instant, sorcery, or planeswalker spell from your graveyard with mana value less than or equal to that spell's mana value without paying its mana cost.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BU
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Murders at Karlov Manor Commander
- Price
- $0.44
- EDHREC rank
- #9379
Counterpoint counters a spell for free — as long as you control a creature with the same mana value as that spell, it's a hard counter with zero mana investment. The catch is the constraint: if your board doesn't have the right creature in play, Counterpoint is a dead card, which makes it unreliable in decks that don't flood the board consistently. Mirko, Obsessive Theorist is the poster commander for it, stacking the graveyard and the battlefield in ways that make matching mana values trivially easy.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Mirko, Obsessive Theorist
Mirko, Obsessive Theorist mills aggressively and builds a creature base from the graveyard, which means Counterpoint almost always has a creature with a matching mana value available — the deck naturally assembles the condition every other spell in the format has to pay mana to satisfy.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Counterpoint is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker — and Commander is where it actually sees play. In Legacy and Vintage, free counterspells exist on a different axis entirely: Force of Will and Mana Drain set the bar, and a creature-dependent Counterpoint rarely clears it. Commander is where the condition becomes manageable — you're playing a 100-card singleton format where creature counts run high and board states get wide, so finding a creature that matches the mana value of the spell you're stopping is a realistic ask by turns four or five. In Oathbreaker the same logic applies at a smaller scale, though the faster games mean you'll hit dead-card situations more often.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.44 bulk tier
At $0.44, Counterpoint sits firmly in bulk territory — this is a pickup you throw in a cart without thinking. Bulk conditional counterspells don't typically appreciate unless a commander emerges that makes them near-automatic includes, and right now Mirko, Obsessive Theorist is the only commander doing that work at meaningful volume.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.