$50 Lorwyn Eclipsed Goblin Completely Shuts Down Counterspells

Last updated on January 7, 2026

Hexing Squelcher | Illustration by Matthew Forsythe

Someone at Wizards of the Coast has been seriously hating on countermagic lately. Spider-Punk is still fairly warm, and Tarkir: Dragonstorm alone gave us Mistrise Village, Voice of Victory, and Surrak, Elusive Hunter. Sure, we’ve got confirmation of Spell Snare returning to Standard, but what good is that when everything’s uncounterable?

2026’s first anti-countermagic card is Hexing Squelcher, and people already have it pegged as one of the standout cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed.

Hey, I’m Squelching Here!

In case it wasn’t obvious, Hexing Squelcher is a callback to Vexing Shusher from Shadowmoor. It’s anti-counter tech, except this time the goblin itself can’t be countered. And unlike Spider-Punk, it doesn’t extend that uncounterability to spells your opponents control. It also throws ward on all your creatures, costing your opponent 2 life any time they want to target something you control. It’s not unlike the recently-printed Mai, Scornful Striker in that regard, which also usually gets 2 damage out of most opposing removal spells.

PSA: Remember that you don’t have to pay ward costs if your spells are uncounterable. So if you and an opponent both control Squelchers, you can essentially ignore the ward ability on their creatures when casting spells. Hexing Squelcher does not make abilities uncounterable, though, so you’ll still have to pay life to push an ability through ward.

cEDH Response

As with any counterspell hoser, the cEDH community took immediate notice, with the entire gamut of typical responses, from “this is completely broken, how could you print this” to “isn’t this just worse than other cards we already have?”

Candy-Patient on Reddit writes: “…no reason to not run it if you are in red,” referring to the card’s playability in Commander. Sonicrespawn agrees, claiming “…it’s just part of all red decks at this point.”

Hop over to Twitter/X and you’ll get some different takes, like @SaffronOlive claiming it’s “just fine… a solid card, but not game-breaking.”

What you don’t see a lot of is people just straight up calling it bad, or unplayable. It’s pretty clear by what’s written on the tin that Ol’ Squelchy will see some amount of play, whether in casual Commander, cEDH, Standard, or elsewhere.

The two most likely homes are combo shells in Commander that just want more anti-counterspell redundancy, or mono-red Standard decks using the goblin as a pseudo burn spell. You can zoom in on the uncounterable text if that’s what you care most about, or treat this like you would Eidolon of the Great Revel and punish opponents for trying to interact with your board. Notable, this isn’t a legendary creature either, so multiple copies on board will stack multiple instances of ward when your opponents aim a spell at your creatures.

I don’t spend much time with the highly competitive side of Magic, but I’m more in line with the Saffron Olive school of thought here: The card looks reasonable and seems eminently playable, but that’s basically the ceiling. In many instances it’ll die to a removal spell and look like a glorified Viashino Pyromancer, though sure, in the right match-up, it’ll turn off a pivotal counterspell and push your spells through.

“Reminds me of when people hyped up the “money rare” multi-format staple Frenzied Baloth, now $2,” says IAMAfortunecookieAMA on Reddit. Squelcher seems a bit better since it doesn’t have as restrictive of a casting cost, but the sentiment stands; same goes for Spider-Punk, which is currently sitting around $2-3. Voice of Victory, however, is roughly $13-15, so there’s precedent for this style of effect being quite useful. Question is, which side will Squelcher land on? Is it the next big control hoser for competitive formats, or is it yet another overhyped piece of anti-counter tech?