How to Defend Against Counters with Black in MTG

When you’re playing mono-black in Magic: The Gathering, facing off against a deck stuffed with counterspells can feel like you’re climbing a steep hill. You cast your big threat, and it’s immediately countered. You set up a combo, but a single well-timed “No” ruins your plans. It’s frustrating, and sometimes it makes you question if black can truly fight back.

The truth is, black has answers. They might not be the classic “counter the counter,” but there are ways to navigate counter-heavy matchups without feeling helpless. Below are some strategies, along with specific cards, that can help you defend against counters in a black deck.

Understanding the Counterspell Threat

Blue’s biggest strength often lies in saying “No” to spells they don’t like. That can range from cheap tools like Spell Pierce and Counterspell to more flexible ones like Cryptic Command. When you see those islands untapped across the table, it’s natural to worry. Will your next spell even make it to the battlefield? This uncertainty can throw off your game plan, especially if you built your deck around a few critical creatures or spells. Yet black has ways to break through those defenses. It just requires a shift in perspective and a willingness to play more proactively.

Leveraging Hand Disruption

One of black’s best skills is ripping apart an opponent’s hand. If your opponent never gets a chance to keep that powerful counter in hand, it can’t stop you. Simple logic. Here are a few key hand disruption cards:

• Thoughtseize
  This is probably the most iconic discard spell in Magic. For a single black mana and 2 life, you can look at your opponent’s hand and pick any nonland card for them to discard. Counterspell? Gone. Cryptic Command? See you later. By doing this early, you can weed out what might ruin your next plays.
• Duress
  Duress is the cheaper alternative if you can’t afford the life loss or if you’re only worried about noncreature spells. At one black mana, it’s an easy way to snag that Force of Will or Mana Leak. It won’t hit creatures, but if the primary threat is counterspells, Duress does the job.
• Inquisition of Kozilek
  Similar to Duress but can hit creatures too, as long as they cost three or less. It doesn’t help much if the opponent’s counters are expensive, but many popular counters fall within three mana. This also costs one black mana, so it’s easy to slot into your deck without messing up your curve.
• Collective Brutality
  While not a dedicated discard spell, it’s flexible. It can kill a small creature, drain some life, or force an opponent to discard an instant or sorcery. Often that’s exactly the type of card you’re worried about when counters are flying around. In a pinch, you can pitch extra cards from your hand to escalate the spell and do more than one effect at once.

Using these spells early can remove the counters before they ever become a factor. And if your opponent decides to counter your discard spells, it still drains their resources. Either way, you’re whittling down their ability to say “No” later on.

Harnessing Recursion and Resilience

Sometimes your key spell will get countered anyway, and that’s okay if you build your deck to handle it. Black is known for returning threats from the graveyard, often at a discounted rate. This can become a nightmare for a blue deck that relies on one-for-one counters. Here are a few ways black can keep threats coming:

• Reanimation Spells
  Cards like Reanimate or Animate Dead let you bring back your biggest creature for a fraction of the cost. Sure, if it’s countered the first time you cast it, you can try again with a reanimation spell. If your reanimation is also countered, you could have another ready, or even more ways to fill your graveyard. Eventually, the opponent might run out of counters.
• Recurring Creatures
  Some creatures refuse to stay dead. Bloodghast returns if your land drop happens, and Reassembling Skeleton can come back for a small cost. These aren’t huge threats by themselves, but they demand repeated answers. A control deck that’s busy holding up counters for your bombs might be annoyed to see small threats keep popping back.
• Flashback and Retrace
  Black doesn’t have as many of these as some other colors, but they do exist in certain spells or in black-based strategies. The idea is to cast the same spell again from your graveyard, making each counter less efficient. If the opponent trades a counter for your flashback spell, you still got value from it.

By repeatedly bringing back threats or spells, you force the blue mage to use counter after counter, and eventually, they may run low. They might hold back and try to outlast you, but black can keep the pressure on by recycling resources again and again.

Weaponizing Unexpected Tricks

If you want a more direct approach to messing with your opponent’s counters, there are a few black cards that are effectively pseudo-counters. They don’t read exactly like a standard counterspell, but they can throw a wrench in an opponent’s plan:

• Imp’s Mischief
  It’s an instant that changes the target of a spell with a single target, and you lose some life based on mana value. If your opponent tries to counter your creature with something that targets it, you can redirect that counterspell to Imp’s Mischief itself or some other target, essentially wasting their answer. It’s not perfect because it won’t help against unconditional counters that say “Counter target spell” without targeting the creature specifically, but when it does line up, it’s pretty satisfying.
• Dash Hopes
  This is an odd one. It gives your opponent a choice: let your spell be countered, or they can pay 5 life to keep it from being countered. Sometimes opponents decide their life total is worth more than stopping you. Other times, they’ll happily pay the life. It’s not always reliable, but it can force tough decisions, especially later in the game.
• Withering Boon
  This is from way back, but it literally says “counter target creature spell.” It costs one generic and one black plus 3 life. It’s not widely used, but if you really want the surprise factor, it’s an option. Folks rarely expect black to whip out a counterspell, and that surprise can win a match now and then.

You won’t often see these cards in competitive black decks, but if you like to keep your friends guessing or enjoy a more casual environment, these can be fun. They also highlight that black can bend the rules in unexpected ways.

Using Mana Denial and Taxing Effects

If your opponent can’t access the mana needed to cast counters, then you’re in the clear. Black has a few ways to accomplish this, though some are colorless artifacts or lands that any color can use:

• Defense Grid
  This artifact increases the cost of spells cast during your turn by three colorless mana. If your opponent wants to counter something on your turn, they must pay the spell’s cost plus three. That can quickly get out of reach, especially if you’re pressuring them. It’s a great sideboard card in formats where control decks rely on counters.
• Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
  Not exactly a denial strategy, but this combo provides so much black mana that your opponent may not keep up with your production. While they’re hoping you can’t pay for an X cost or multiple spells in one turn, you explode with more mana than they expected. You can force them to respond to multiple threats in a single turn. They may counter one, but the next might slip through. Get our Cabal Coffers proxy, or our Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth proxy card.
• Rishadan Port
  Yes, it’s not black and probably belongs to other colorless strategies, but it can fit into some black decks that need to keep an opponent’s land tapped. Tapping a critical blue source before they can cast a counterspell can be the difference between your bomb landing and it getting denied. It also doubles as a subtle form of disruption against decks that rely on few lands or precise color fixing.

When you combine discard, recursion, and these taxing or mana-limiting methods, you can create a game state where the opponent’s counters are either stripped from their hand or too expensive to cast.

Baiting the Counters

Sometimes you’ve got to play a mind game. If you suspect your opponent is holding up a counter, you can bait it out with a less important spell. Maybe you have a big demon in hand that you really want to resolve, but you cast a smaller creature first. If they counter it, you’re then free to cast your demon. If they don’t, you still get a small creature on the board, which isn’t terrible.

The trick is to figure out your opponent’s priorities. Are they going to save their counter for your biggest threat, or are they so paranoid they’ll counter anything? If you play enough spells in a single turn, one of them might get through. This takes timing and a bit of reading the opponent’s style. In my experience, trying to force counters out of a control player’s hand is often the best route, because once you run them out of gas, they become much less intimidating.

Timing Matters

Keep an eye on your opponent’s untapped mana. If they tap out to cast something on their turn, that might be your chance to land a critical spell on your own turn. If they keep two islands up, that might signal a classic Counterspell waiting for you. Of course, good players can bluff, but it’s still useful to consider if they have the resources for a counter.

You can also look for spells with flash or creatures with abilities that matter when they enter the battlefield. Casting these at the end of their turn forces them to decide immediately whether to use a counter. If they do, you can follow up on your turn with something else.

Don’t Lose Hope

Counter-heavy matchups can be annoying, and it can feel like your black deck is outmatched. But black’s power to remove threats from the opponent’s hand, repeatedly recur creatures, and punish them for tapping out gives you a fighting chance. Each discard spell you cast can pave the way for your real threats, and your graveyard strategy can ensure you don’t just fold to a single well-timed “No.” And remember, nobody can counter you if they don’t have a hand.

The key is to layer your plan. Don’t rely on a single big creature or a single spell to carry your deck. Spread out the threats and keep the discard coming. It’s okay to be a bit sneaky, forcing the opponent to respond when they don’t want to, or tapping their lands when they need them most. Eventually, something will stick, and once you gain that lead on the board, the control deck might flounder without a dedicated sweeper or more counters in hand.

Final Thoughts

Defending against counterspells as mono-black is all about playing proactive and forcing the opponent into awkward situations. Use discard to tear apart their answers before they can use them. Rely on your graveyard to bring back creatures that were lost. Consider sneaky tactics like Imp’s Mischief or situational cards like Dash Hopes if you enjoy surprising the table. And don’t underestimate the art of baiting—sometimes throwing a smaller spell into the counter line can help your heavier threat land safely.

Yes, counters can be vexing, but black is more versatile than people often give it credit for. After a few games, you might even come to enjoy the dance. You’ll watch your opponent’s face as they shuffle through their hand, uncertain whether to counter that nuisance creature or hold out for something bigger. And that uncertainty is where black thrives. Keep them guessing, keep them discarding, and eventually, you’ll find the path to victory.