Thwart
Instant
You may return three Islands you control to their owner's hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Mercadian Masques
- Price
- $3.29
- EDHREC rank
- #15308
Thwart counters any spell for free — you return three islands instead of paying four mana, which means it's live even when you're tapped out. It's a real counterspell in blue-heavy lists, not a situational trick.
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 |
In Commander, Thwart earns its slot in mono-blue or heavily blue decks where returning three lands is a real cost you can absorb — Azami, Talrand, and Braids of blue-heavy builds all qualify. The alternative cost means you can hold up interaction without committing mana to it, which is genuinely powerful in a format full of must-counter threats. In Legacy, Thwart is fringe-playable but Force of Will and Daze crowd it out; the three-land bounce is too steep when the game ends on turn two or three. Vintage has the same problem at a faster speed. Oathbreaker mirrors the Commander read — useful in blue-dense builds, marginal elsewhere.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$3.29 cheap tier
At $3.29, Thwart sits at the low end of the counterspell market for a card with genuine alternative-cost utility. That price is stable — it's not a staple in any high-demand format, but blue EDH players who want redundancy on free interaction keep quiet demand consistent.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.