I ' m a bit late here but figured a new player could use a little more help . One distinction worth noting is to understand the difference between casting a spell and resolving a spell . If I ' m casting Loxodon Smiter , I ' ve spent the mana and am attempting to summon this creature into existence . A card like Summary Dismissal or Mindbreak Trap may still exile the spell before it resolves . But all the effects that attempt to counter that spell like or Mana Leak would fail because Loxodon Smiter can ' t be countered . You could still cast those ' counter ' spells at the unresolved spell , but they would simply fail to produce their wanted effect . This is similar to how you can cast Doom Blade on an indestructible nonblack creature . The Doom Blade will resolve and do nothing . But you can NOT cast Doom Blade on a black creature . After the spell resolves though , the creature only now exists on the battlefield . Now it could be targeted by a spell like Doom Blade . Things can happen when a spell is cast and things can also happen when a spell resolves . They are two separate instances that sometimes get grouped together . An instant like Mana Leak targets a spell that has not resolved . An instant like Doom Blade targets a creature on the battlefield . That creature may have been a spell that resolved , it may be a token that was generated by another creature , or it could be a land animated by another spell ' s effect or who knows what . The slightly more tricky example here is Kalonian Twingrove vs . Desolation Twin . If I cast the Twingrove and it gets countered , nothing happens . If I cast the Desolation Twin and it gets countered , you still get a 1010 token creature even though the spell was countered . This is because some of the really expensive giant eldrazi creatures have cast triggers that happen whether the spell is countered or not . Most creatures have enters the battlefield effects or ETB effects that only happen if the spell resolves and the creature enters the battlefield but a few have cast triggers . Summary Dismissal in fact was printed specifically to be able to counterexile a spell AND special cast triggers like this example .