[SCD] Mental Misstep

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Thank heavens for this card. We were almost at a point where non-Brainstorm decks had become playable, but this should set things straight again.

You're misevaluating the format. Blue isn't the best color because it crushes everything, it's the best color because the tools it offers you also work against combo. In a straight heads-up, blue-based aggro decks based mostly around beats and 1-for-1 cards have no particular advantage over those that don't run blue, with some variance for specific decklists. Their statistical advantage is in breaking combo, which non-blue decks tend to be overwhelmingly disfavored against. Even discard isn't particularly good against High Tide these days, since they only really need two cards, High Tide and Time Spiral, to have a 95% shot at comboing off.

If combo takes a hit it reduces the incentive to play Brainstorm. There are just better cards to play in a format where the average swing turn is 4.5 and critters on the ground are the main wincons.

Of course, those decks still require duals, even if they're the cheaper ones, which gets back to your other point which seems to be a non-sequitur. Dual-based decks with expensive Legacy staples like Force, Wasteland, Mazes, Mox Diamonds, Aether Vials, etc., etc.. haven't gotten any less common recently. Affinity, Elves, and Ichorid have all gotten a bit of tournament showing lately, but in addition to being budget decks they also share in common that they're laughably fragile glass cannons, completely hosed by some very commonly played main or side cards. Elves can't deal with Lavamancer or Jitte effectively, in addition to having problems with any deck that packs more than six or so removal spells, Affinity gets hosed by maindeck Deeds or sideboard Null Roads, the latter of which lets anyone completely shut down their deck for two mana, and there's a dozen or so ways for any deck to beat Ichorid for one mana or less, sometimes even drawing a card in the process.

Legacy is expensive and that's a separate problem, but I don't see how Mental Misstep adds to this, and it may even help a bit. As the format slows mana bases become more important, and the incentives to go three colors should diminish.

Yes, this card will actually become asymptotically better, because as the general mana curve gets more 1cc heavy, this card becomes better and increases in top 8 appearance, until every deck is 60 mental missteps

That's just silly. Everyone knows the correct build is 14 Island, 44 Mental Misstep, 2 Brain Freeze.

[Forbiddian]

Aggro Summer, coming to a store near you, Summer 2011.

What the fuck, Wizards?! I poke in to check out what cool new cards they've printed and I find out that Zoo rapes the entire current metagame. I hope that this is a hoax or something (or at least it requires that you have an Island in play to cast it). Maybe you could metagame a slow control deck or a stompy deck or something, I dunno, but the current checks and balances that keep Zoo from dominating all are now strictly and greatly diminished.

Metagame has "survived" bigger changes, though. Tarmogoyf, Wild Nacatl, Qasali Pridemage....

[Angelfire]

Mental Misstep is great. Easily the best card in NPH. [Snip. - Bardo] I definitely think it will make legacy more fun and more interactive. Decks will have to rely on not being one trick ponies and pack a larger overall threat density. If a deck countering your one drop makes you lose, you deserve to lose.

Pointlessly hostile and rude comment delete. Verbal warning for that. - Bardo

[Aggro_zombies]

That's just silly. Everyone knows the correct build is 14 Island, 44 Mental Misstep, 2 Brain Freeze.

Just wait 'til I show up with a 5 Swamp, 4 Thrumming Stone, 51 Relentless Rats deck and wreck your faces! Mental Misstep THIS!

[joven]

A free counterspell without color requirement: WotC must be insane!

I have a strong feeling that MM might be bad for the gameplay:
1. WotC broke their own rules (the color pie) by making this card. That's the literal definition of a broken card.
2. It is strong and you can play it in every deck (no color requirement). -> That does not support creativity, that hinders it. It's like Goyf but worse.
3. It counters itself. So nearly every game will be: "MM" - "I MM your MM." - "But I MM your MM." And that's over and over again every fucking game.
4. Dumb luck gives the advantage. If you don't have it in your opening hand and your opponent has one, you're in trouble.

[Angelfire]

A free counterspell without color requirement: WotC must be insane!

I have a strong feeling that MM might be bad for the gameplay:
1. WotC broke their own rules (the color pie) by making this card. That's the literal definition of a broken card.
2. It is strong and you can play it in every deck (no color requirement). -> That does not support creativity, that hinders it. It's like Goyf but worse.
3. It counters itself. So nearly every game will be: "MM" - "I MM your MM." - "But I MM your MM." And that's over and over again every fucking game.
4. Dumb luck gives the advantage. If you don't have it in your opening hand and your opponent has one, you're in trouble.

1. This card is significantly worse if run in non-blue. No hard cast and no pitch to Force when it is dead.
2. It doesn't belong in every deck. If people want to dilute all of their decks with this, go right ahead.
3. So it answers itself. How is this a bad thing? MM wars just give aggressive decks an advantage. Sounds good to me.
4. Trading one for one and going down 1 mana in tempo is hardly the end of the world.

[Nonex]

A free counterspell without color requirement: WotC must be insane!

I have a strong feeling that MM might be bad for the gameplay:
1. WotC broke their own rules (the color pie) by making this card. That's the literal definition of a broken card.
2. It is strong and you can play it in every deck (no color requirement). -> That does not support creativity, that hinders it. It's like Goyf but worse.
3. It counters itself. So nearly every game will be: "MM" - "I MM your MM." - "But I MM your MM." And that's over and over again every fucking game.
4. Dumb luck gives the advantage. If you don't have it in your opening hand and your opponent has one, you're in trouble.

1. Planar Chaos edition and some Zendikar traps would like to have a word with you. And I think the definition of a broken card involves warping the format until it rotates around it or decks involving it (like Flash). Correct me if I'm wrong.
2. Goyf is a threat and Misstep is an answer, I don't think you can apply the same line of reasoning to both. I may want some Goyfs to increase my threat density or as alternate win conditions if my deck can support them, but if my most relevant cards and the cards that hurt me the most can't be countered by Misstep, I don't see why I would want them.
3. Most counters can counter themselves. It's not like Force of Will wars are that uncommon.
4. This has been true since the very beginning of the game. See Force of Will again.

[Koby]

I poke in to check out what cool new cards they've printed and I find out that Zoo rapes the entire current metagame.

Prove it. I haven't seen a Zoo deck in Top 8 for nearly 2 months, and accounting for 5.2% of the metagame. You're smoking some dank herb, son.

[Forbiddian]

Prove it. I haven't seen a Zoo deck in Top 8 for nearly 2 months, and accounting for 5.2% of the metagame. You're smoking some dank herb, son.

1) Zoo is an extremely tempo-oriented deck that can immediately push for a win against a deck falls behind on tempo and/or can't come up with answers in time. Mental Misstep fits all of those criteria perfectly, and actually profits on mana every play. 2) Zoo is an aggro deck and loves trade-down situations that leave the board intact. Mental misstep wars are going to favor the aggro player in general. 3) Zoo's worst matchup by far (and the only matchup keeping it in check) is combo. Assuming that you have a mental misstep, the range of hands that can get a turn 1-3 kill off against you is very narrow, so you'll usually get a chance to race, which is way more than could be said earlier.

Aggressive decks make massive profit from this, but the deck improved the most (other than e.g. chalice control decks who can dodge the CC1 problem) is Zoo since it was already a reasonable pick. It's basically the premier non-blue deck. And now I'm not even convinced that combo can even hold its own against Zoo, let alone snipe it out of the metagame (and certainly combo is weakened by Mental Misstep being played in non-Zoo matchups, so there will be less combo).

[ivanpei]

Actually after sleeping on it (for a few nights), I'm not too upset with the printing of this card. Though I will be forever annoyed by how common misstepping a mistep is going to be (I predict, we'll see this in at least 25% of all games we play), I think it's better for budget decks in general. I have a rule of thumb that to beat combo, you need 12-16 cards that interact to safely beat them.

Take a black based deck for example:

Preboard-
4 Thoughtseize,
4 Hymm
4 Wasteland
Postboard-
in 2-4 Duress/Inquisition etc

Blue Based:

Preboard-
4 Force
3-5 Daze/Spell Pierce/Counterspell/Spell Snare/Vendillon Clique or a combination
4 Counterbalance/Wasteland (Usually blue decks play 1 or the other)

Postboard:
2-4 Spell Pierce/Clique/Meddlingmage (Flexible hate)

The gold standard IMO for beating combo is 12 MD disruption and + 3/4 after board. Lets see what non blue/black decks can run:

Preboard:
4 Wasteland
...

Postboard:
4-6 Mindbreaktrap/Cannonist/Teeq/Chalice

4-10 ways to interact is nowhere near enough and it's total crap. But now with both Surgical Extraction and Mental Misstep, any deck, regardless of colour can interact with combo. Wizards was smart enough not to print something that totally wrecks combo, but just something that just lets people interact with combo, nerfing combo slightly but giving all Force/Thoughtseize-less decks a chance:

Preboard:
4 Mental Misstep
Maybe 4 Wastes

Postboard:
3-4 Surgical Extraction (Replaces tormod's crypt here)
3-4 Mindbreak Trap/Cannonist

This gives you up to 16 ways to interact postboard which is pretty good. Anyone who's ever played extirpate against combo knows how useful that card is. Extirpate on high tide/candel/turnabout or LED/Ritual/Infernal or Painter/Stone is pretty good. Granted the above are not all combo hosers, at least non blue/black decks have a chance at beating combo WITHOUT messing with their win percentages against other decks. Traditionally sideboards are broken into:
3 Gravehate
3 Broad Combo Hate
3 Anti Aggro
3 Anti Control
3 Anti Artifact/Enchantment

This is just an over generalisation, but any budget deck can have 4 missteps main, 3 Surgical Extraction in the board and 3 chalice/Trap as the broad combo hate to have a chance against combo. They still have slots to dedicate to other MUs and are not at a severe disadvantage. This IMO is what Wizard is trying to achieve. They are trying to help budget decks be interactive against combo. Will it pan out and allow tribal elves/affinity be competitive against combo, or will we be sick of seeing missteping missteps? I don't know, but it's going to be interesting.

[Koby]

1) Zoo is an extremely tempo-oriented deck that can immediately push for a win against a deck falls behind on tempo and/or can't come up with answers in time. Mental Misstep fits all of those criteria perfectly, and actually profits on mana every play. 2) Zoo is an aggro deck and loves trade-down situations that leave the board intact. Mental misstep wars are going to favor the aggro player in general. 3) Zoo's worst matchup by far (and the only matchup keeping it in check) is combo. Assuming that you have a mental misstep, the range of hands that can get a turn 1-3 kill off against you is very narrow, so you'll usually get a chance to race, which is way more than could be said earlier.

Aggressive decks make massive profit from this, but the deck improved the most (other than e.g. chalice control decks who can dodge the CC1 problem) is Zoo since it was already a reasonable pick. It's basically the premier non-blue deck. And now I'm not even convinced that combo can even hold its own against Zoo, let alone snipe it out of the metagame (and certainly combo is weakened by Mental Misstep being played in non-Zoo matchups, so there will be less combo).

Perhaps I misspoke. I merely asked to see how Zoo has been performing lately; of which it's been missing. Zoo has been pushed out of the metagame by Natural Order and Show and Tell decks in the last few months. These decks have a better combo matchup (usually paired with Force of Will and Spell Pierce), and can outclass Zoo with threats (but not speed). I posit that Zoo, while it stands to gain much from a card such as Mental Misstep, does not actually make it playable in the current metagame.

Bant however, has nearly the same tools, and stands to gain more.

[troopatroop]

I feel that this was printed by WotC in an effort to tame Legacy, and stop all the degeneracy. Turn 1 Stifle is now stoppable outside of blue. Aggro decks can now slow down combo and punish mulligans. If Blue also has insentive to play it, and everyone can afford it, it's a bitch for combo.

[Aggro_zombies]

Perhaps I misspoke. I merely asked to see how Zoo has been performing lately; of which it's been missing. Zoo has been pushed out of the metagame by Natural Order and Show and Tell decks in the last few months.

This is actually important. From the standpoint of Zoo, these are "combo" in the sense that they use two or more cards which almost completely invalidate Zoo's ability to win in combat by providing a superior clock or, as in the case of Emrakul, destroying the board. It's no different than storm combo for Zoo, except you're in a little bit of a better initial position because the shells these cards go in are more interactive. However, they're also more resistant to Misstep because the business cards cost four (NO) and three (SnT) and both circumvent common storm hate (with SnT also getting around Teeg).

In the actual storm matchup, if you have one Mental Misstep in hand (a common scenario, given you can only run four), you lose to any of the following resolving: Chant, Silence, Duress, Thoughtseize. You also lose to countering any of them. If you use Misstep on a Brainstorm, you give your opponent a permanent +1 storm, which makes it easier to go off as there are now more lines of play: the opponent only needs eight spells and a Tendrils as opposed to nine and Tendrils. Furthermore, if you fetch twice in a game, your opponent gets +2 storm, which makes it easier to kill you with IGG - thereby rendering life loss mostly irrelevant, whereas it wouldn't be in the case of needing Ad Noz to kill you. Even combined with, say, four other hate slots in the board (in addition to 4 Misstep), it's almost certainly not positive against medium or better storm hands, especially because you're diluting your threats once you've swapped your Paths for Missteps.

What Misstep does do, however, is make Counterbalance and tempo stronger, both of which have broadly positive storm matchups. Those two can act as a suppressing force on combo, letting Zoo back into the metagame if it dedicates sideboard slots specifically to beating blue. I'm not sure those slots involve Missteps, though.

[voltron00x]

Well said,sir.

[ivanpei]

Aggro decks can now slow down combo and punish mulligans. If Blue also has insentive to play it, and everyone can afford it, it's a bitch for combo.

Weak combo hands usually still beat Aggro if undisrupted. But if they stumble, and have a misstep thrown into their developement, Aggro can have a good chance of reach that critical Turn 4 to kill them. This itself is good enough for Aggro decks to play it. The fact that it protects your creatures and screws vial is just icing.

That's the thing about misstep, though it's not as good vs Show and Tell/NO, it can still snipe a Noble/GSZ/Brainstorm. It's extremely relevant at slowing opponent's down at no tempo cost to the aggro player. Misstep + wastelands can get there, even in G1. As for your point that misstep in Blue suppressing combo, you are absolutely right. Misstep + Force + Counterbalance will definitely give combo a good kicking, allowing aggro back into the format.

[klaus]

What Misstep does do, however, is make Counterbalance and tempo stronger

MM counters Top.

[Aggro_zombies]

MM counters Top.

...so? It also counters Wild Nacatl, Loam Lion, Steppe Lynx, Kird Ape, Grim Lavamancer, Noble Hierarch, Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, and Chain Lightning, and yet people are somehow arguing that Zoo is coming out of Misstep's printing as a winner.

Counterbalance wins because Misstep gives it a way to interact early that doesn't involve bouncing lands. It especially helps boost control builds of Counterbalance because, in addition to allowing early interaction, it's an ideal answer to Aether Vial.

[dahcmai]

I'll tell you one thing. It sure improves the crap out of all my stupid decks that are "almost" amazing. Most of them have a problem because they didn't have the one casting cost spells and lacked a little speed. Testing with this card proxied up is just showing it more and more. Fear the return of Sorrow's Path. lol

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

...so? It also counters Wild Nacatl, Loam Lion, Steppe Lynx, Kird Ape, Grim Lavamancer, Noble Hierarch, Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, and Chain Lightning, and yet people are somehow arguing that Zoo is coming out of Misstep's printing as a winner.

Counterbalance wins because Misstep gives it a way to interact early that doesn't involve bouncing lands. It especially helps boost control builds of Counterbalance because, in addition to allowing early interaction, it's an ideal answer to Aether Vial.

Zoo only cares about the early game, really. Counterbalance cares about a lot of different cards that cost a lot more than 1 It's great that you countered a turn 1 Aether Vial, but if you can't do shit else but sit back and get beat by Fish and Gobbos and Knights of the Reliquary, what have you gained?

[Aggro_zombies]

Zoo only cares about the early game, really. Counterbalance cares about a lot of different cards that cost a lot more than 1 It's great that you countered a turn 1 Aether Vial, but if you can't do shit else but sit back and get beat by Fish and Gobbos and Knights of the Reliquary, what have you gained?

This is an essential problem to Counterbalance, and the reason why it's more of a combo than a deck. Things like Thopterbalance have positive aggro matchups, generally speaking, but as I understand it Merfolk can be an issue if it sticks Vial and has permission at key times.

Really, when making a control deck, you can build it to beat whatever you want, within certain limitations. The problem with the creature control package to date was that it didn't help enough against Vial because Vial could keep shitting out guys through your Counterbalance while also saving mana for the other guy. Misstep alleviates some of that problem, though not all of it.

Also, Counterbalance decks generally also only care about the early game. Their end game involves doing whatever they feel like because they have all the time in the world (figuratively speaking) to kill you once they lock you.