Avoid Fate

I got a soft spot for this spell -- it counters things, in green! I picked up the foils I could find when it was reprinted in Time Spiral; I incorrectly assumed that it'd show up next to Mana Leak in control decks. It's a little too narrow for most competitive scenes, despite its cost. I'd even go as far to say that it's just a little narrow in general -- it's got some awkward clauses that should go.

Awkward clauses like the whole text of the card.

Green has a limited palette of countering abilities, which you can see on modern cards in Bind and Voidslime; white also has a claim to the ability thanks to Azorius Guildmage. (While gold cards allow effects that bleed the color pie, creating effects you'd never see any of a card's colors, hybrid cards are supposed to represent something each color could do on its own -- in the guildmage's case, that's "an off-color activation for a very off-color ability.") In either case, blue is clearly the king of countering abilities, be they activated or triggered; anything this spell did would have to be a green take on that ability.

And guess what -- green's take on that ability exists, and it's called hexproof (or shroud for you old-school curmudgeonly "in my day you couldn't enchant your untargetables" types). Also, since hexproof has no downside, it doesn't need to have a targeting restriction; you can't counter an opponent's equip with this card, for example.

I did have to bump up the rarity on this gem, though; it's a limited counterspell, sure, but it's still cheap and broad. If I restricted it to "target creature" only, it'd be a common for sure.

(Wizards apparently agrees with me a little bit: I didn't notice a sly little Innistrad common, Ranger's Guile, until after I wrote this entry. It's this version of Avoid Fate for creatures.)
(Super double pre-post edit: I'm nowhere near as cool as I thought I was. Vines of Vastwood was from Zendikar block and it totally slipped my mind.)