With people looking to fill open slots in their deck, I think we already have the perfect answer. I can only imagine that shops (and probably oath) will increase in popularity, and Spell Snare neatly answers most of their deck for the low, low price of U.
Spell Snare sees a lot of play in other formats, and I've been surprised by the lack of play in vintage. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it's time for the little guy to shine.
It was popular when Dark Confidant was the main draw engine in control decks. If that happens again Snare is good. If it's only an answer to Oath and Shops, it's bad.
I agree with fsecco; Spell Snare is way too narrow unless a flood of 2cc cards see play in the post-restriction metagame. Spell Pierce seems much better if you're looking for a one-mana counterspell.
At the Gencon ~90 man at Gencon 2013 I played 2 x Snare and top 2 split the event with @bactgudz . That was an interesting event because it was Pyromancers coming out party pre champs. This was also pre-Dack, and pre-Delve. The counterspell suites back then (almost 4 years ago ... man I'm old) were much more diverse. The world hadn't homogenized around 4 x Missteps. But the decks that did tended to be the Pyromancer decks, and Delver Pyro decks. This is what truly started the slide to where we are today. The top 8 blue decks from that event played 2 x Pierce, 0-2 x Snare, 0-2 x Steel Sabotage, 0-3 x Misstep ... I also played Mana Leak and a gentleman's Drain. The rise of the token based kill conditions synergize so well with derpstep and to a lesser extent Probe and Gush you are incented to max out. Then dack came, then delve came and there was no turning back from 14-16 free spells and the super light Gush manabase. The synergy was too insane. Anyway, Spell Snare is fine when Pyromancer and Snapcaster were the premier creatures, Oath and Burning Oath were big, and it's always good vs. Shops. But once every blue deck is playing 4 x Derpsteps and Pyro costs 3 instead of 2 and kills you in 1-2 turns it's efficacy wanes. RIP Spell Snare you snared many Spheres.
I've been playing spell snare off and on for some time, but due to the recent meta, it's not been sleeved in a good while.
@nedleeds I like gentlemens drain so much more than fun-of, might have to steal that
