The September 20th 2011 Banned / Restricted List Update Reaction Thread

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Originally Posted by Misplayer

Show and Tell exists

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Does it? If you ask a combo player if he'd rather play a deck that wins on turns 3-5 that half-relies on a creature rather than on turns 1-3 with another combo deck that just needs mana and Ad Nauseam after this Misstep ban, what do you think he'll say? Show and Tell Hive Mind was mostly a product of Mental Misstep and being good against blue disruption.

Regarding this ban though, I agree with Zilla. WotC listens a bit to much to bitching by the masses and then bans earlier than they should to really see if the meta can sort itself out. Remember when Hive Mind was breaking the format? Neither do I, but people bitched, and bitched, and bitched, and where is it now? Oh wait, NO RUG and Stoneblade rule the format now, and they're broken now, and Misstep is ridiculous now, and banned because it's broken. lawl

EDIT:
Or maybe Drew Levin just went office cubicle to office cubicle and performed fellatio on the guys at WotC headquarters...

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Originally Posted by nedleeds

Why is it that (minus Merfolk) Brainstorm is just as ubiquitous but seems to get free pass? The deck that wins in this banning is Merfolk (especially Merfolk players good at going first).

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I think Merfolks with Mental Misstep is a much scarier deck than Merfolk without Misstep. At the very least, Misstep greatly shores up 2 weakest matchup: Zoo/Goblins. Now Merfolk has to play with the creatures in the Zoo and little green men.

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Originally Posted by nedleeds

Why is it that (minus Merfolk) Brainstorm is just as ubiquitous but seems to get free pass? The deck that wins in this banning is Merfolk (especially Merfolk players good at going first).

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Misstep was played in higher numbers than Brainstorm, so they weren't equally ubiquitous. While I definitely think Brainstorm is stronger than Misstep, people generally don't want it banned. Just as an indication; 85% of the people on this forum are against banning Brainstorm, and 31% would quit Legacy if it happened. In addition to that, it'd be hard to predict the consequences it would have on the metagame, if Brainstorm were banned. You could easily end up with a format where blue control is unplayable trash, and nonblue combo-ish decks (e.g. NO-Hulk, Enchantress etc) become unstoppable monsters. On the other hand, we already know what the format is like without Misstep, so it's a much safer way to nerf blue slightly.

I'm a bit surprised so many in here liked having the card around. The general opinion I've heard from pros/high level players has either been "it's very bad for the format", or "I don't think it should be banned, but it should never have been printed". I've literally not heard one good word mentioned about it.

I think a lot of you are missing the point of this banning.

Yes the format would have adjusted to the card over time, but the design team had a very specific purpose for the card in mind, which it ultimately failed to fulfill. From Erik Lauer's B&R Explanation: "R&D wanted a card that could help fight combination decks, and could also fight blue decks by countering cards such as Brainstorm... Unfortunately, it turned out poorly. Looking at high-level tournaments, instead of results having blue and nonblue decks playing Mental Misstep, there are more blue decks than ever."

I think this finally puts to rest the idea that R&D doesn't care about Legacy. Clearly, they pay attention to the metagame and actively design cards to support and improve it. In this particular case, the design backfired and R&D decided to kill it. This is the first instance of this type of banning, which is why I think many of you are struggling to explain it by comparing MM to other similarly powerful cards as well as previously accepted rationale for bannings.

This decision gives a whole new light to our understanding of how R&D shapes eternal formats through new printings and active monitoring of the banned list.

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Originally Posted by keys

This decision gives a whole new light to our understanding of how R&D shapes eternal formats through new printings and active monitoring of the banned list.

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I suppose, but the notion that a free blue counter wouldn't be pushing blue forward seems naive.

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Originally Posted by kikoo

I'm a bit surprised so many in here liked having the card around. The general opinion I've heard from pros/high level players has either been "it's very bad for the format", or "I don't think it should be banned, but it should never have been printed". I've literally not heard one good word mentioned about it.

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What "pros" did u ask? SCG asked his T8 legacy players, and nobody said that MM was unfair or should be banned. Infact a lot of pros said with MM around legacy was finally a competitive format and not some random pet deck shit. Honestly im tired of losing against randomdecks or by dieroll. I might quit Magic over this stupid ban.

Here is a big problem with the way that people are evaluating MM, and how they are making comparisons to other cards. MM is constantly being evaluated in a vacuum; "It isn't broken", "Brainstorm is more powerful", "It's an answer, not a threat", etc.

The problem with this type of evaluation is that it completely ignores what it does for blue based control strategies. Blue control's weakness is that it requires having an appropriate answer at the correct time. It is based on the premise that the beginning of the match is the most dangerous due to not having mana available to actually answer threats and applying no pressure until mid to late game due to having to keep mana open for answers. MM allowed blue control to work around its drawbacks at too cheap of a cost.

For a color to be able play cards that go against their designed weakness a much greater cost is associated with the card; FoW goes against these weaknesses but costs an additional card, and Daze does as well but for the cost of long term development. Where MM deviates from the model is that its greater coat is not enough. Two life is too low of a cost for blue control to be able to survive the early game, and to be able to apply pressure early while still being able to answer threats.

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Originally Posted by keys

I think a lot of you are missing the point of this banning.

Yes the format would have adjusted to the card over time, but the design team had a very specific purpose for the card in mind,

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To me, this doesn't matter and I think shouldn't matter to them. They've made a ton of mistakes in the past(and by extension, these cards have done things that weren't intended when designed) so this shouldn't be a deciding factor. Was the format unhealthy? In my opinion it wasn't or wasn't unresolvable by people adjusting. You see a top8 with a bunch of Missteps, but it's not the first time this has happened with other cards, and Wizards hasn't banned all those. The format had multiple archetypes, and now we'll be back to some extent to a top 3 deck format.

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What "pros" did u ask? SCG asked his T8 legacy players, and nobody said that MM was unfair or should be banned.

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There was a video, don't remember where I saw it, that had a bunch of pros/scg pros saying it was unbalanced, especially Drew Levin.

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The problem with this type of evaluation is that it completely ignores what it does for blue based control strategies. Blue control's weakness is that it requires having an appropriate answer at the correct time.

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Wow, all the times my opponent had a Mental Misstep in their hand instead of Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, or even Daze when I played a Mystic, Hymn, or Knight and proceeded to win the game because that Misstep was Misstep... Yeah, it sucks having my t1 Thoughtseize countered so easily, but passed turn 2-3 it was mostly meh. The only upside over these 2 counters that Misstep has is how easy it is to play, but it definitely doesn't increase versatility. Spell Pierce and Spell Snare can both counter more cards, and arguably higher impact cards. It wasn't the versatility that made Misstep so good, it was just that it plugged some holes that neither of those others could plug.

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Originally Posted by 2Rach

To me, this doesn't matter and I think shouldn't matter to them. They've made a ton of mistakes in the past(and by extension, these cards have done things that weren't intended when designed) so this shouldn't be a deciding factor. Was the format unhealthy? In my opinion it wasn't or wasn't unresolvable by people adjusting. You see a top8 with a bunch of Missteps, but it's not the first time this has happened with other cards, and Wizards hasn't banned all those. The format had multiple archetypes, and now we'll be back to some extent to a top 3 deck format.



There was a video, don't remember where I saw it, that had a bunch of pros/scg pros saying it was unbalanced, especially Drew Levin.



Wow, all the times my opponent had a Mental Misstep in their hand instead of Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, or even Daze when I played a Mystic, Hymn, or Knight and proceeded to win the game because that Misstep was Misstep... Yeah, it sucks having my t1 Thoughtseize countered so easily, but passed turn 2-3 it was mostly meh. The only upside over these 2 counters that Misstep has is how easy it is to play, but it definitely doesn't increase versatility. Spell Pierce and Spell Snare can both counter more cards, and arguably higher impact cards. It wasn't the versatility that made Misstep so good, it was just that it plugged some holes that neither of those others could plug.

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Nice straw man; I never claimed that versatility is what made MM so good. What I did claim is that MM was too good because it solved an inherent problem with blue control, surviving the early game while being able to apply some pressure of its own, at too low of a cost.

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Originally Posted by keys

I think a lot of you are missing the point of this banning.

Yes the format would have adjusted to the card over time, but the design team had a very specific purpose for the card in mind, which it ultimately failed to fulfill. From Erik Lauer's B&R Explanation: "R&D wanted a card that could help fight combination decks, and could also fight blue decks by countering cards such as Brainstorm... Unfortunately, it turned out poorly. Looking at high-level tournaments, instead of results having blue and nonblue decks playing Mental Misstep, there are more blue decks than ever."

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And their reasoning is complete shit. 1) It's not true that all of a sudden there's a heightened proliferation of blue decks. There is a heightened proliferation of people playing NO RUG and UW Stoneblade, but that's not the same thing. Even if those decks dominate Top 16s, that's not the same thing as there being "more blue decks than ever." More blue decks than ever would be a slew of new blue archetypes. Two decks does not constitute a slew, and those decks were already played before MM.

2) Correlation is not causation. These decks are not the best in the meta because of MM's presence. They can run other cards in its place, and will also remain competitive after the meta shift. Those decks are good because...well because they're good. Stoneblade rose to prominence because of a concatenation of factors, not least of which being SFM + Batterskull + Jace, which makes for a threat-heavy control deck. Here's why blue decks, including those two, run blue in the first place: FoW and brainstorm. MM is just happy collateral.

3) I wouldn't expect those idiots to know this but MM was played in nonblue decks, and was great in them. Banning it hurts those decks far more than it hurts the blue decks that played it because for them its function is irreplaceable (rather than merely its effectiveness being irreplaceable).

The DCI's conclusion is not only empirically falsifiable, but its reasoning is laughable.

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Originally Posted by Humphrey

What "pros" did u ask? SCG asked his T8 legacy players, and nobody said that MM was unfair or should be banned. Infact a lot of pros said with MM around legacy was finally a competitive format and not some random pet deck shit. Honestly im tired of losing against randomdecks or by dieroll. I might quit Magic over this stupid ban.

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Like I said a dozen times, this would never be an issue if Modern didnt automaticly banned Mental Misstep.

My problem about the ban is DCI/Wizards cannot be trusted. Wizards should be making the cards they shouldnt be policing them. I guess this is why I like EDH, they dont have to listen to Wizards!

I'm considering to try type 1 again but I believe the format could be so much better if the deck size is 100 cards. I've been asking wizards for years to consider this option and so far I have no such answer.

Anyway, I'm thinking of starting/testing a 100 card proxy vintage format. The rules are quite simple, current vintage restriction with the addition of Oath of Druids. Proxy legal cards are based upon a set value over 50 dollars. Minimun deck size is 100 cards but sideboard is 15 cards (or maybe 20) and life is still set at 20. (if anybody likes to try this idea please do)

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Originally Posted by Humphrey

What "pros" did u ask? SCG asked his T8 legacy players, and nobody said that MM was unfair or should be banned. Infact a lot of pros said with MM around legacy was finally a competitive format and not some random pet deck shit. Honestly im tired of losing against randomdecks or by dieroll. I might quit Magic over this stupid ban.

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I'm not inclined to listen to top8 questionnaires after GP Flash's question "Do you think Flash needs to be banned in Legacy?" got 3 No, 1 Yes, 3 Maybes, and a Don't Care. Honestly, I don't place much trust any small group of people to make good decisions about managing the Legacy ban list.

I don't think misstep alone was as format warping as everyone has been saying. The combination of mental misstep + batterskull I think is what did it in. A new fast counterspell alone doesn't stop the threat density that aggro decks have, but when it follows it up with an win condition that also completely nullifies the aggro strategy as early as turn 3, aggro doesn't stand a chance. In one set control got a great answer to combo(and legacy in general) and a great answer to aggro.

Personally, I liked the format best right after new phyrexia came out before batterskull caught on. Aggro was still doing fine then because it could still race the landstill decks that improved with mental misstep but still had to win with Jace's ultimate.

I wonder if mental misstep would have gotten the axe if batterskull hadn't also been printed.

Eric Lauer: "Hmm, these mana-cheating tutors are causing problems in an older format. What should we do about it?"

Aaron Forsythe: "I know, let's ban this counterspell that we just printed solely for that format, that should fix things."

Eric Lauer: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What will that fix?"

Aaron Forsythe: "Who the hell knows, but I'm tired of getting my Wild Nactl countered on turn 1!"

Eric Lauer: "Seems legit to me!"

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Originally Posted by vnayin

I don't think misstep alone was as format warping as everyone has been saying. The combination of mental misstep + batterskull I think is what did it in. A new fast counterspell alone doesn't stop the threat density that aggro decks have, but when it follows it up with an win condition that also completely nullifies the aggro strategy as early as turn 3, aggro doesn't stand a chance. In one set control got a great answer to combo(and legacy in general) and a great answer to aggro.

Personally, I liked the format best right after new phyrexia came out before batterskull caught on. Aggro was still doing fine then because it could still race the landstill decks that improved with mental misstep but still had to win with Jace's ultimate.

I wonder if mental misstep would have gotten the axe if batterskull hadn't also been printed.

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Printing an Equipment-Creature of that power level was almost as dumb as printing Artifact-Lands.

Just picking two card types and combining them is such stupid design :(

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Originally Posted by funyun45

And their reasoning is complete shit. 1) It's not true that all of a sudden there's a heightened proliferation of blue decks. There is a heightened proliferation of people playing NO RUG and UW Stoneblade, but that's not the same thing. Even if those decks dominate Top 16s, that's not the same thing as there being "more blue decks than ever." More blue decks than ever would be a slew of new blue archetypes. Two decks does not constitute a slew, and those decks were already played before MM.

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For christ's sake...

They meant the number of people playing blue decks increased, not that there were more unique varieties of blue decks being played. I'm hoping that english isn't your first language and there's a reason you didn't understand this?

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Originally Posted by UnderwaterGuy

For christ's sake...

They meant the number of people playing blue decks increased, not that there were more unique varieties of blue decks being played. I'm hoping that english isn't your first language and there's a reason you didn't understand this?

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It would be nice if we could have some debate that didn't involve ad hominem attacks. His point is actually feasible. To illustrate this, imagine that a UR deck has 60% matchup across the field. Prior to the creation of this deck, red decks made up 3% of the metagame, but as the UR deck began its rise in popularity red shot up to make 90% of the metagame. To me, this scenario would not indicate that the color red was overpowered, but rather that the UR deck itself was overpowered.

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Originally Posted by majikal

Eric Lauer: "Hmm, these mana-cheating tutors are causing problems in an older format. What should we do about it?"

Aaron Forsythe: "I know, let's ban this counterspell that we just printed solely for that format, that should fix things."

Eric Lauer: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What will that fix?"

Aaron Forsythe: "Who the hell knows, but I'm tired of getting my Wild Nactl countered on turn 1!"

Eric Lauer: "Seems legit to me!"

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this

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Originally Posted by coraz86

I think it comes back to what Zilla's been saying (echoed occasionally by others) here and elsewhere; it's possible to be premature on the banning argument. Look at Force of Will and Goyf, for which there exist strong arguments and significant evidence to suggest that they're not even knee-jerk inclusions in their respective colors, let alone knee-jerk four-ofs.

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I think there's a difference to the MM case. MM did that in all colors.
(Although I don't exactly understand what "knee-jerk" means. :D)

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Originally Posted by UnderwaterGuy

Printing an Equipment-Creature of that power level was almost as dumb as printing Artifact-Lands.

Just picking two card types and combining them is such stupid design :(

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I think the problem is not the Equipment-creature Batterskull but the broken ability of Stoneforge Mystic to put it into play for 1W. As if only fetching it wasn't good enough ...
But I consent, I don't like those living weapons either, they're ugly design.

Damn people. We have a format with tons of different viable decks. No other format has so many options as Legacy does. With or without a free counter for everyone's turn 1 play.

Do I think Misstep NEEDED to be banned? Maybe, maybe not. I honestly don't care. But it happened. Deal with it.

Put your energy into building and testing your next deck. As opposed to putting your energy into complaining/debating/whining/bitching/talking/blathering/whatever about how 'stupid Wizards banning decisions are'.

Time is money people. Don't you think it should be spent on doing something productive?

The best decks in the format were blue shell tempo decks using free counterspells as timewalks.

Then R&D printed another free counterspell that could be used as a timewalk, and that was even more effective than FoW in this aspect.

Therefore, the only decks remaining in the meta were blue shell tempo decks playing 8+ free counterspells as timewalks, and a lone dredge deck that didn't cast spells, and as such couldn't be timewalked this way.

R&D should have banned Force of Will, because Mental Misstep did the same as FoW and could be played in any color, and unlike Force of Will, it couldn't be used by combo and actually enabled control to exist, and you could actually adapt to it by building a deck that wasn't affected by it.

The pros have said the problem with Mental Misstep is that it broke the illusion that blue wasn't the best color in the format. I deny that, I believe that the illusions it broke are:
1. That "answers" are never unbalanced.
2. That "answers" never win you the game.
3. That FoW/MM are control cards.
4. That FoW is a bad card that people only play to protect them from combo.
5. That the meta can adapt to the best deck if given enough time.
6. That you can play everything in legacy
7. That aggro always beats control
8. That a card being everywhere doesn't mean it's broken, and...
9. That blue doesn't dominate the format.

The bad thing about illusions breaking, is that you can no longer return to the previous state, and WotC has printed too many good blue cards in Innistrad without taking out anything from the blue shell, other than the single one nonblue decks could play. I predict blue dominance for the next three months, but of course not as strong and obvious as when blue tempo decks could play 8 free timewalks, and that's because the underlying problems behind's blue dominance haven't been addressed.