I'll also recommend
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant for prison-types of Modern decks or EDH in that manner since it's General Magic forum. Whitened
Hindering Light,
Render Silent,
Absorb,
Swift Silence are some of my favorite counter spells. One or two Commands like
Ojutai's Command and
Silumgar's Command also made me impression and have place in my Draconomicon, but there and there only. I only use however
Hindering Light, but I
wonder on
Render Silent and
Absorb for the close art and probable Magic relation, should I put them in my Scria Larsonia: a Sphinx-Archon-Bird flying deck. Therefore, I don't use that many counter spells in Blue decks. I even cherish my Pheres Centaur Pagony for it has cards that
recycle the graveyard and oppose the counter spell mechanic. I can only see pragmatic in my friend krgr's (Boris), who uses counter spells like
Counterspell and
Cryptic Command in a Counter-Burn No-Creature deck. Otherwise creature decks or planeswalker decks usually win at FNMs. Also, I admire dual-color counter spells like
Ionize,
Double Negative,
Essence Backlash,
Mindswipe and
Counterflux in the Red side.
Voidslime,
Plasm Capture and
Decisive Denial from Green. Black only has
Countersquall that is good.
Psychic Strike and
Perplex for millers and discarders, but I don't like these strategies. Others are mostly dual cards. Enough, I pointed at many counter spells, but in brief only the dual-coloured, even
Izzet Charm, are slightly better than the mere "discard a card for an opponent's card to not allow it to make an effect" technique which IMHO is the counter spell. Basically you are down with a card for a card of the opponent. Yeah, I'm mostly in Tribal budget, but there should happen something else beside this in my philosophy. Therefore the dual colors are my answer. Even "choose between" are slightly better.
Regards:
Chavo