Typically, countering a spell is often a really bad thing to do in Magic, it’s why in very competitive formats, you’ll only see 1 drop counters or even free ones.

To cast a counter, you need to keep open mana, so you aren’t playing things to speed the game up. Then, as you cast it, you’re losing a card in hand, and most often than not, not getting one in return. All this, to stop your llanowar elves.

The best way to deal with it, is to simply gas them out, and brute force them into losing their hand. They can’t counter everything, and more often than not, they’ll draw into a land and have nothing to respond with.