Are you really comparing leylines to counter effects? ha ha ha...
I will make use of every tool that fate presents.
Aggro Zombies I am confused by your posts, some you are pro MM and some are against?
I can see MM being good in a blue deck, but this is going to be played in goblins/zoo/what ever deck? Just seems like it doesn't fit the decks strategy.
As a Merfolk player I think this is going to be nuts, but I don't see how zoo/goblins having this card is going to be good. How can these decks compete with all my counters while weakening their threats. Where in Merfolk/blue decks it actually goes with the decks strategy, even if you are not countering a game breaking turn 1 play you are still advancing your board state while having a counter for there play. What ever that is, people have already listed everything
Are you really suggesting that every deck run Misstep just so it can counter an opponent's Missteps plus whatever other random 1cc cards he has? ha ha ha...Originally Posted by perm
Seriously. How often is countering a random 1cc card a good, or even relevant, play? In order for your opponent's 1cc card to be worth a card and two life (or a card and), the following has to be true:
1) The card, if resolved, will swing the game in the opponent's favor in the long term,
2) The card, if resolved, will make it difficult for you to retain or gain the upper hand,
3) The card, if resolved, is more threatening in the near or long term than other 1cc cards the opponent may have.
This is of course ignoring whether the cards you sided out, and whether some other combination of sideboard slots may have been more effective.
Looking at what a card can do *in a vacuum* is worse than looking at what a card actually does in a game. Mental Misstep does not answer resolved Aether Vials. It does not answer a Top in play. It does not answer a Wild Nacatl that is attacking you. It answers Chant but does not answer the spell chain that follows and which eventually results in lethal Tendrils. In order to deal with those things, you need other cards; you will need to side in Misstep in combination with something else that mops up what slips through, because otherwise Misstep's "utility level" behaves in exactly the same manner as a Leyline's (i.e., you open it and are golden or draw it after the damage is done and the card is incredibly mediocre). That then opens up a whole slew of questions about optimal sideboard construction and whether Misstep improves your across-the-board win percentage post-board relative to some other combination of fifteen, work that a lot of people either won't do or will do but not put into words because they'll be cutting the Missteps from decks that can't utilize it effectively (just as you don't often run off-color Leylines).
EDIT: @SlopeeJ: I am pro-Misstep in decks that can effectively use it, which at the moment seems to be blue decks. I am anti-every-deck-has-to-run-Missteps-because-every-deck-has-to-run-Missteps, which describes, like, 90% of this thread. I think that if you answer all of the four questions in my previous post with "yes," you should definitely run it, and if you answered three of them with "yes," you should definitely test it as it is likely to be good in some situations.
Assuming you're not a blue deck supplementing your countermagic with Mental Misstep:
Mental Misstep: Must be in your opening hand to counter the game-breaking turn one plays you bring it in against (Vial, Lackey, etc). In the later turns, Mental Misstep is a fine card, but it won't answer the cards you boarded it in to beat.
Leyline: Must be in your opening hand to counter the game breaking turn one plays you bring it in against (Dredging, Tendrils on the second or third turn, etc). After the first turn, the Leylines are pretty weak.
If you don't draw either in your opening hand, Mental Misstep is a better topdeck than Leyline. Sure, Mental Misstep will always have targets, but you aren't boarding in sideboard cards to counter late game Brainstorms- you boarded it in against the cards you can't beat on turn one. Although countering Brainstorms is a fine play, you need your sideboard cards to swing the matchup in your favor, not just be useful.
Example: Most decks run some mix of Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Relic of Progenitus, and Faerie Macabre over Leyline of the Void because these cards don't HAVE to be in your opening hand to give you a fighting chance in the matchup. Similarly, Pithing Needle will be much better against Aether Vial for most decks than Mental Misstep if you are boarding in cards specifically for Aether Vial.
InfoNinjas
Yeah because I ALWAYS have to counter that gamechanging StP turn 1. If you're the aggro deck and your opponent is playing 4x StP, you'll probably see 1/2 or 2/3 (blue deck) of those during the duration of the game, giving you plenty of time to draw MM.
People don't even realize, but countering a turn 1/2 BS cast by the combo player can be devastating. I can't remember how many times I kept shaky hand with just a BS to save me and laughed as they refuse to Daze my puny draw spell.
"There are wrong answers, not wrong threats", anyone?
Honestly, I don't see how this card is different from Counterbalance in that people can't adapt to it the same way they adapted to Counterbalance, or Daze. People will lose to this card, then adapt to the format, and then beat those same decks.At least Counterbalance didn't immediately go to the graveyard and still countered spells ALL DAY. Mental Mistep is a 1-for-1, and it costs life. It's a great card and it will shift the format (not define it), but then other decks will shift in design and play through or ignore Mistep.
For example, Coming from the prospective of Goblin Sligh.
- I am vulnerable to Lightning Bolt and STP
- I am vulnerable to spell based Combo
- I am vulnerable to Mental Misstep (11 1cc Creatures/ 11 1cc Spells)
How can I turn down playing Mental Misstep? Goblin Lackey is my #1 card, and it solves alot of my problems. If they Misstep my 1 drop, I really want to be able to trap them back, and build off of that Shock right away. I don't care about my life total, and as long as you can use it...
It's a case to case basis, but cmon! What doesn't play 1 drops? Countering Aether Vial should steal enough games to justify the card alone.
But the context here still matters. If you're a Zoo deck you likely don't have enough disruption to make up for the free +1 storm you just gave the opponent by paying two life. A modern Ad Naus deck in the Ari Lax vein can set up IGG to kill you regardless of how much you beat down. But in a blue deck with other counters to keep combo off its game, using Misstep on the setup spells can buy you vital time to set up a better disruption wall.
Again assuming a non-blue deck:
Are you going to devote sideboard slots to countering cantrips in combo? No, there are much stronger sideboard cards against combo.
Is Mental Misstep worth maindeck slots? It depends. If it pushes your percentages against matches that are close to even or slightly unfavorable without diluting your maindeck, than yes. What decks fall into this category? It's too early to tell.
InfoNinjas
The better question here is, do you expect Mental Misstep plus your other anti-combo cards to push the matchup past 50%? If you just run Mental Misstep, you lose to:
- A Xantid Swarm attack
- A Chant
- A Duress
- A Thoughtsieze
...since countering any one of those leaves you vulnerable to the spell chain that follows, but failing to counter them renders your Misstep useless. And since it's combo, and most combo is fast, you want probably another four slots past the Missteps; let's split the difference between combo types and assume 2 Canonist, 2 Mindbreak Trap. You now have over half your sideboard dedicated to a deck that maybe makes up, what, 5% or less of a representative American metagame? Maybe 10%? And does that even push your win percentage against those decks past, say, 55-60% to make it worth blowing half your sideboard on cards for that one class of decks? Seems poor.
Why is necessary to push a matchup past 50%? I would be fine improving a matchup from "absolutely miserable" to "slightly unfavorable", if it doesn't significantly detract from my other matchups.
For example, Mental Misstep maindeck gives Zoo a chance against fast combo. It's not always the correct card to draw in other matchups, but it doesn't significantly weaken Zoo either in anything besides Stompy decks. What is there to lose?
Your postboard percentage against other, non-combo decks? They side in cards against you, while half your sideboard is dedicated to losing the combo matchup less badly, and now your win percentage against other decks starts sinking because you don't have relevant sideboard cards for them.
The problem is that it is not easy to play around misstep. You can't wait for them to tap out (like playing around stifle), you can't play stuff a turn later (Daze) or you can't overload with threats (beating Force with redundancy ala Zoo). The only way is to not play one drops. And if you don't play one drops, that puts you in Chalice-Stompy region as I've mentioned. Either that or you run minimal 1 drops in your deck. Honestly, which deck does not play 10 + 1 drops? Whenever building a deck in legacy, I always count the number of T1 plays in my deck and I ideally want at least 12 ways to interact on T1.
If you cut your 1drops to play around misstep, you will be blown out by quick aggro. Enough said. Not having quick fixes and cheap 1cc spells to fight quick decks is impossible. Legacy is bloody fast, you need to interact on the first turn, and 1 drops dominate legacy. So since you can't play around misstep, you have to play through misstep. So what's the best card to help you play through misstep yet helps in many other things: Mental Misstep! My conclusion is that misstep-less decks (that are not stompy), will be at a severe disadvantage to decks that can run misstep. The tempo swing from countering a 1st turn play for free is just too amazing to pass up.
Mental Misstep is also a card that slots easily into many decks. You don't have to worry about blue count, you are not restricted by colour requirements and you don't have to tune your deck to play it efficiently since it's free! If you can't play misstep, you are naturally at a disadvantage to decks who can play misstep seamlessly. Misstep Team America, Misstep Zoo, Misstep Bant, Misstep Sligh will all punish other decks that don't benefit from playing misstep. It's a grim picture of:
Misstep deck-> Non-misstep attrition -> Chalice Stompy -> Misstep deck.
I weep, but it's true.
You're still only dedicating four slots of your sb to combo hate: 2 Canonist, 2 Mindbreak. The 4x MMS are there for anything they could be good against, or at least better than [card xyz]. They're not narrow, if anything, they're potentially the broadest sideboard cards ever.
PS: Thinking about it now, my earlier example of Landstill vs. Belcher was probably poorly constructed, as Belcher has like 12-16 1cc spells and can usually get away without using them if it has to. Blue-based combo would probably have a harder time with MMS.
I hadn't seen your deck before Troop, that's an interesting list. I looked at that and I wished I still had my UWx landstill deck put together. I haven't cast wrath of God in Legacy in a long time. . .
Sorry for the nostalgia. Have you been testing MM? I'm curious as to your results. On the one hand, if you happened to have both in your openning hand it would just be biblical: And ye, the goblins of the Lord did descend upon them, and the green of the goblin shone round about them, and they were sore afraid . . . But on the other hand, that's not going to happen very often in the scheme of things, fewer than once out of every five games, if my numbers are right. MM is going to counter something less game breaking, and you're going to wish that you had another three points of damage to kill your opponent. Let us know how it goes, will you?
Rishadan Port is like scuba gear.
--FoulQ
This seems like the crucial failure of imagination that a lot of people are suffering from. Of course Mental Misstep doesn't fit with non-blue decks' existing strategies; those decks haven't previously had the option of adding a free non-blue counterspell. You can't evaluate Mental Misstep within the framework of what existed before.
Take Zoo for instance. When the fuck has Zoo even had the option of having a free counter? Yet Zoo is a perfect deck for this card. It's aggressive, it should ideally know most of the cards it's going to see over the game in its opening hands, and it desperately need some way to slow combo down even a turn so it can finish them off.
Goblins also needs some tools to fight combo while slowing down the early game so its overwhelming card advantage can come online.
For a blue deck all you have to do is compare the card with other existing counters. That's not the case with evaluating the card in other strategies.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
You know what deck this card would be good in? Stasis!
Needs more goyfs.
Except for Stompy decks, pretty much every top tier deck has several 1 cc cards, many of which are high impact (all of which have been discussed ad nauseam). I don't think there's any contention that Misstep on one of those cards in the early game is unbelievable. However, there are also a considerable number of 1 cc cards in the format (such as Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, Ponder, Swords to Plowshares) which are devastating even if resolved in the late game; they are among the most played cards in the format.
Sure, there will be instance in which you rip a Mental Misstep late, and your opponent has already played out his 1 cc cards and doesn't draw into one for the remainder of the game. As David Price said, which you quote, there are no wrong threats, but there are wrong answers. But sometimes an answer is impactful enough in the matches where it is relevant and versatile enough to be frequently relevant, that you're willing to take the trade off. That's why Swords to Plowshares is commonly maindecked, even though there are decks that run no creatures or no creatures without shroud/protection; why Thoughtseize is often maindecked, even though it is dead in the lategame and often backfires against graveyard-based decks; etc.
I certainly recognize it will occasionally be dead. My contention is that Mental Misstep is played often enough to justify inclusion in the 75, possibly maindeck depending on the expected metagame, even in some non-blue decks. You can certainly be right, but I think it will be really interesting to see how the new metagame shakes out!
I think the metagame will shake out with everyone playing 4 Misstep because they feel they have to play four Misstep because they have to play 4 Misstep because everyone is playing four Misstep and so they have to play four Misstep to beat their opponent's four Missteps and any other random one mana cards because if they don't they'll lose the game to their opponent's four Missteps.
I'm gonna make a bold leap and just Crystal ball a bit. Mental misstep WILL dominate Legacy. No doubt about it. Will it be played in half the decks in legacy? I don't see why not. Does it make the meta healthier? Yes I believe it does. There are very few decks that cannot run mental misstep efficiently so every deck will simply sprout 4 MD.
The real losers are decks that depend heavily on 1cc spells to win. For example, vial decks and high tide decks. I think this is a good move by Wizards upon reflection. Folk, gobbos and even elves without a T1 Vial is significantly less scary. Zoo losing it's T1 Kitty is painful, but not game breaking. Neither is losing a Noble Heirarch/Brainstorm to misstep. Not getting your vial to stick however, really decreases your deck's power level.
Chalice Stompy got a huge upgrade in overall MU win percentage. Now every deck has + 4 1cc cards that are totally blank against Stompy. Awesome! I don't think format diversity will be affected. Actually it might actually get more diverse as non-vial aggro (that is not zoo) can finally compete with Vial aggro. However, Misstepping mistep is going to be boring. Mental misstep will become played in every deck, across all colours. It's like Force in vintage. You simply have to play it to be able to compete. This is due to Combo's brokenness. So in vintage, you either play combo, Shops or Forces. In legacy, you either play combo, Stompy lands or missteps. Simple pillars.
I can see T8s containing:
5 Missteps decks
2 Chalice decks
1 Non-Misstep rogue
Something like vintage:
5 FOW deck
2 Staxxx
1 Dredge/Rogue
Vintage is diverse since there is FOW Oath, FOW Storm, FOW Control, FOW Fish...
So how is Misstep Zoo, Misstep Folk, Misstep Bant, Misstep Countertop any less diverse?
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