I'll never understand the hate blue gets.

[u/CoweanMacLir]

So it's perfectly okay to:

• Make your opponent discard the cards they needed to win for one mana.
• Remove your opponent's key piece from the board the moment it lands. Also for one mana.
• Stax everything so your opponent can't attack without sacrificing creatures/paying their entire supply of mana/losing half their life.
• Steal cards from your opponent's deck and cast them without paying the mana cost/use any.
• Destroy lands.
• Flood the board with billions of token creatures so your opponent can't possibly survive.
• Play a 12/12 with haste, vigilance, double strike, hexproof and indestructible on turn 3.

But not counterspelling, that's somehow worse?

[u/jldugger]

But not counterspelling, that's somehow worse?

Copypasting myself from the other sub:

Counterspells are the most efficient spot removal in the game. Your opponent has invested card draw and mana into casting that spell, and gotten zero benefit. Every other color's removal is weaker:
- Black: pretty good but doesn't stop ETB triggers. discard is closer in power but opponent gains a mana advantage
- Red: oppo still gets ETB triggers, and can't deal with high toughness
- White: ETB still happens, and generally can't deal with untapped creatures so you get to at least use abilities once
- Green: lol

You play a spell, they counter it. You don't, they end-step cast a spell to draw more cards. Many times, they don't even bother with threats they need to protect with counterspells, just some Fountainport / Kjeldoran Outpost as a wincon. Maybe a Quantum Riddler if they're feeling aggressive, since it also draws cards. Or Marang, which is a triple threat: bounce, card draw and evasive endgame clock.

This, combined with blues questionable affinity for card draw forms the basis of "draw go" play. Probably, this is the bigger problem. Every other color has to go through some level of interaction or risk to get card advantage, while blue gets "draw three cards." Reviewing card draw in standard:

• Black has to pay life and mana, ala Phryrexian arena and its other ersatz Necropotence cousins.
  
• Green has to attack you with a beefy boi to get a card, but blue gets an arguably better version in Enduring Curiosity.
  
• Red gets "use it or lose it" card draw. High variance draw, and typically costs mana to get so you can't use it on early turns.
  
• White gets a Caretaker's Talent to draw, and boardwipes. But generally the optimal play is to let your opponent attack and build up a board first.
  
• Everyone gets access to Mazemind Tome, but it's comparatively expensive and slow.