Negate (Morningtide, 2008)
The quintessential blue spell. Countermagic is blue, creatures stuff is not blue. Countering a noncreature spell is just about the most blue thing one can do in the game of Magic: The Gathering. Negate is powerful and conditional at the same time, which is a sweet spot for establishing color identities and achieving a balanced game that is still dynamic and capable of supporting varied strategies. It is also self-controlling. The more negates are played, the worse negate becomes, because it can be targeted by the enemy negate. Its peak value is in controlling cheaty non-creature strategies like big-spell ramp and combo. The mana value of 2 means it will always be better as a safety valve for fair decks than as an enabler of unfair decks. Its weakness, and all perfect card designs should have an obvious weakness (note: not flaw ), is small aggressive creature permanents. This is a perfect summation of where blue should have a weakness as a color. Creature cards that gene...