I second PhaedrusXY's assessment on counter-spelling (and pretty much everything else he ever says), and bring to bear that the spell duelward (Spell Compendium, P.74, sorc 5) can be put up to make your next couterspell an immediate action, and the spell battlemagic perception (Heroes of Battle, P.125, sorc 3) helps you know when spells are being cast, what spell is being cast, and can be discharged to counterspell.
Only problem is BMP being a sorc 3 spell would be hard to pick up on a bard, even with sublime cord / seeker of song builds.
That said, the first suggestion of tainted scholar is way off, the class is not as powerful as people seen to think. Yes, you gain power from taint, but you accrue a lot of penalties, and end up making your character unplayable very quickly. There are ways to lessen the penalties, but they all take away from the power of the scholar. Like the popular "be a necropolitan undead, undead are immune to taints effects" is ignoring that an undead's taint scores are set to an amount, and that can not be either raised of lowered. whats more is that amount is less than you would be getting for your CHA if you didn't dip into the scholar. Of course, if I'm missing something, someone can feel free to PM me the correction.
also, to the matter of the OP, at high levels, AMF + invoke magic (9th level spell out of lords of madness) ought to truly appeal to your CE side.