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Unlocking Confound in Blue Midrange: Strategies and Lore

There’s a certain elegance to the way Confound plays with a midrange game plan. This humble instant from Planeshift (pls) costs just 1 generic and 1 blue mana, a neat 2-mana tempo tool for blue decks of yesteryear and today alike. Its text—“Counter target spell that targets a creature. Draw a card.”—reads like a compact lesson in card advantage: deny a threat’s life for a moment, and you’re rewarded with another card to shape the next play. In a game where your midrange threats require protection and steady value, Confound offers a precise, economical line of play 🧙‍♂️🔥💎.

In midrange builds, the name of the game is resilience plus inevitability. Your curve typically leans on solid bodies that pressure opponents while remaining robust enough to weather removal. Confound slides into that plan as a flexible answer that doubles as a refuel mechanism. When an opponent targets one of your crucial creatures with a spell—whether it’s a pump, a removal spell, or a devious hijack—Confound stops that specific threat, and the draw helps you replace it with another relevant play. It’s not a blanket counterspell; it’s a focused tool that buys time, protects your board, and keeps the momentum in your hands 🧭🎲.

How Confound Shapes the Midrange Game

Two things make Confound particularly potent in this archetype. First, the clause that targets a creature keeps the interaction tightly focused on your battlefield state. If your deck’s plan hinges on a resilient threat that survives post-removal, Confound buys you a turn to recommit or pivot. Second, that extra card draw matters. In a blue midrange shell, you’re often balancing interruptions with threats and stabilizing inevitability—Confound nudges the math in your favor, helping you string together a sequence of plays that a reactive opponent can’t easily disrupt 💪🧩.

Strategically, you’ll want to align Confound with creatures that either present a consistent clock or offer value when left alone. Think of beater creatures that demand an answer on sight, or utility bodies that enable favorable combat math. Confound’s illusion of tempo can discourage your opponent from overextending their plan, because every path to progression becomes contingent on removing your creatures—while you quietly refill your hand and look for the next resilient threat. It’s the kind of mindful tempo that feels like you’re playing chess with water—fluid, but still precise 🧊⚔️.

In practical terms, you’ll often cast Confound in response to a spell your opponent intends to cast targeting a creature you control. Countering that spell? Great. Drawing a card? Even better. Your aim is to maximize that card draw while preserving your most important threats on the battlefield. If your deck includes cantrips or other card-draw engines, Confound compounds their value: you stop a targeted threat and then refill your options, keeping your tempo delicate but intact. The art of this approach is knowing when to lean on Confound versus when to deploy bigger counters or a more proactive plan 🔥🃏.

From a design perspective, Confound embodies a classic Planeshift-era blue design space: efficient cost, clean text, and a utility that rewards careful timing. Its flavor text—“Did I know Szat would betray us?”—hints at a world where trust is scarce and plans hinge on timely counterplay. The card’s rarity as common reflects its role as a foundational, repeatable tool in a blue arsenal, not a flashy, must-have bomb. Yet in the right midrange lineup, Confound can feel pivotal, a quiet anchor that steadies the ship while you chart a course to victory 🧠🎨.

For players chasing value, consider Confound as part of a suite of blue interactions that protect your presence on the board. A post-swing turn where you counter a targeted spell and draw a card often creates a ripple effect: your opponent loses pressure, you refill, and you set up a future play that can turn a stalled game into a controlled crawl toward a win condition. The key is balance—don’t chase every spell you want to counter; instead, pick the moments where the draw will reshape the next couple of turns in your favor. That disciplined tempo is where midrange decks truly shine 🧭🎯.

Build Notes and Play Patterns

• Color identity: Pure blue; focus on cheap cantrips and reliable threats that benefit from tempo and card advantage.
• Mana curve: A lean 2-mana investment on Confound leaves room for a few 3- and 4-mana plays that press the board.
• Format viability: Confound is legal in Legacy, Vintage, Commander, and several eternal formats, though availability in casual Historic or modern-mlated environments depends on specific printings and bannings. In paper, its common status makes it accessible for budget-conscious builds 🧙‍♂️.
• Artwork and lore: The Planeshift era’s Doug Chaffee art captures a moment of tense negotiation—exactly the mood Confound aspires to conjure on the battlefield.

As you experiment with midrange shells, remember that Confound’s real power emerges when you couple it with a consistent set of threats and a few draw-based engines. The goal isn’t to stall forever but to trade evenly, keep answering back, and slowly accumulate advantage. The longer you sustain your board while digging for answers, the closer you get to a position where your next threat lands and your opponent finds themselves outpaced by card parity and board presence. It’s a small spell with outsized impact—a reminder that, in MTG, clever targeting can do more than merely negating a play; it can spark a cascade of momentum that carries you to victory 🧙‍♂️💥.

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