[SCD] Mental Misstep

[Star|Scream]

I'm wondering whether we should just ignore the fact that Swords/Path are countered by MM, since there's not much reason to play them when you can play Dismember and dodge MM in situations where its target would be really relevant.

Dismember costs 4 life

What creature would you need to remove turn 1 that is worth a card and 4 life (at that second?) I think if you are going to stop using stp, you might want to go to 2cmc removal before using -4 life removal.

[ivanpei]

I just finished my first round of testing (with Bant NO and some other decks) and came to a few early conclusions. Mental Misstep is ridiculous in blue decks, period. If you have Force and Brainstrom in your deck, Mental Misstep is an auto 4-off. Having said that, I could see how non-blue decks might choose not to play it. Beyond the first few turns, Mental Misstep becomes a terrible conditional counter. Blue decks have Brainstorm to shuffle Misstep back into the deck or Force to pitch dead missteps. Non-blue do not have that option.

For grinding non-blue decks (midrange etc), mental misstep is not for you (Big Zoo, Junk WG aggro, Goblins). It dilutes your threat density and really sucks to be topdecked late. It is however very very important in non-blue decks that plan to win in the first few turns like Cat Sligh, Infect-Berserk decks etc. Big Zoo will not play misstep, but smaller, faster versions that play price/fireblast/steppe lynx will likely want it. If your deck is "all in" and opening hand dependent, misstep is for you. More testing results to come. Cheers.

Btw I just finished my set of Missteps. I had to scour 2 prerelease sessions with about 50++ players each to track down 1 playset of missteps. I think they were a total of 2 playsets from those 2 prerelease sessions as me and another guy could only find 1 playset each. 8 Missteps cracked from 300 NPH packs (each guy gets 3 NPH + 3 SOM packs)? This is ridiculous!

[lordofthepit]

For grinding non-blue decks (midrange etc), mental misstep is not for you (Big Zoo, Junk WG aggro, Goblins). It dilutes your threat density and really sucks to be topdecked late. It is however very very important in non-blue decks that plan to win in the first few turns like Cat Sligh, Infect-Berserk decks etc. Big Zoo will not play misstep, but smaller, faster versions that play price/fireblast/steppe lynx will likely want it. If your deck is "all in" and opening hand dependent, misstep is for you. More testing results to come. Cheers.

I'm arguing the opposite--that Mental Misstep does not belong in Cat Sligh, but that it might have a home in Big Zoo (but that needs testing and is dependent on how the metagame shapes up)--on the Big Zoo thread in N&D.

[Koby]

Which cards would you propose be cut to make room for Mental Misstep in Cat Sligh? Most aggro lists are very tight with d00ds, reach, and removal. Where does reactive answers fit into this plan?

[ivanpei]

I'd probably cut the 4 worst burn spells in cat sligh for missteps because protecting your T1 Creature ->>> 1 burn spell. If your T1 Drop connects, you are very very far ahead and Misstep gives you that. As for Big Zoo esc decks, you don't really care if your T1 dude is answered or not, you slowly ramp up and overpower them.

[lordofthepit]

27 copies of Mental Misstep in the top 8 of this SCG, 45 in the top 16.

[AngryTroll]

27 copies of Mental Misstep in the top 8 of this SCG, 45 in the top 16.

Top 16 of the Star City Games Orlando Open on 5/15/11:

Top 8 / Top 16 numbers
24 / 28 Brainstorm
27 / 51 Force of Will
27 / 45 Mental Misstep
8 / 26 Daze
4 / 5 Spell Pierce ( +6 / + 17 in sideboards )
8 / 8 Spell Snare
3 / 3 Stifle

7 / 13 Blue Decks
1 / 6 Merfolk (makes for some funny Brainstorm numbers relative to Force)

Mental Misstep is awesome.*

*In blue decks. We'd have to see more of the tournament to know how it is in non-blue decks. Did Zoo decks with Misstep do better than Zoo decks without Misstep? We have no way of knowing without more information.

[Rune]

27 copies of Mental Misstep in the top 8 of this SCG, 45 in the top 16.

Basically what was to be expected. All FoW archetypes got a giant boost with MM, while some other archetypes are either much weaker or just dead now, realistically speaking (Goblins, Dredge, Ritual combo, fast Zoo, Lands, Elves and so on). I'm sure I'll get called stupid by all the people who are in some kind of denial mode because they have an emotional attachment to the decks that are heavily affected by MM, but the fact is these decks are all blue's bitches now, if they weren't already.

I hated this dumb card ever since I first laid my eyes on its butt fugly art, because I knew this stuff was gonna happen. I have no idea why this card, that was obviously designed almost solely for Legacy, needed to be printed in the first place. As I see it, it just kills diversity and strengthens archetypes that were already very strong. Also, please don't say this is easily fixed by just maindecking MM in your Gob/Zoo deck, because playing conditional, reactive cards in a nonblue deck is obviously pretty fucking horrible.

Blue FoW decks are my favorites, yet I still hate this card. The more I playtest with it, the more I despise it. In a lot of matchups it's like you got 8 FoWs now. Yes, playing less than 4 Missteps is a clear misstep (HEHE). So far, I found that the card acts as a nice set of training wheels against stuff like Goblins, Dredge and storm. Previously, correct decision making and skill were required to beat these decks, but now you never even have to mulligan! Now you no longer have to debate whether or not you should burn your FoW on the plow that targets your creature. BAM, Misstep! /easymode on

Oh, well. At least a Dredge player made top4 in BoM, so maybe all is not lost YET. Eagerly awaiting to see if he used some sick tech to get there, or if it's just a Merfolk player who wrote Dredge on his decklist sheet for the big lulz.

[ivanpei]

Pretty expected, card owns everything hard. I'm not playing anything without Force and Misstep in the near future. Card is just insane.

[Forbiddian]

Don't just stop at top 8 with your analysis:

45/64 top 16 (2 decks without)
27/32 top 8 (1 deck without)
15/16 top 4
8/8 top 2

[Diprivan]

Oh, well. At least a Dredge player made top4 in BoM, so maybe all is not lost YET. Eagerly awaiting to see if he used some sick tech to get there, or if it's just a Merfolk player who wrote Dredge on his decklist sheet for the big lulz.

I just lol'd. Just too cynic.

[ivanpei]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=38341

This is the highest placing Merfolk deck that T8ed and it played a 4th Misstep over the 4th Force! Tell me its not true! -_- This guy values Misstep higher than force and placed 6th. I knew it was busted, but cutting a Force before cutting Misstep? Man if that doesn't spell how powerful Misstep is, I don't know what does.

[menace13]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=38341

This is the highest placing Merfolk deck that T8ed and it played a 4th Misstep over the 4th Force! Tell me its not true! -_- This guy values Misstep higher than force and placed 6th. I knew it was busted, but cutting a Force before cutting Misstep? Man if that doesn't spell how powerful Misstep is, I don't know what does.

Could be he expected a lot of mirrors(6 in top 16).

[ivanpei]

Even the non blue decks (by non-blue, I mean no Force, no brainstorm) are packing misstep:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/s...ch_Schutt.html

Called it! This deck definitely loves Misstep, fast Zoo lists most probably should be running Misstep too.

[Eksem]

I played with MM for the first time in a small event this weekend. Was a bit tired and "burned out" about Magic in general so I didn't do so well, but this card is fantastic. I mean, I understood it was going to be good and I payed far too much to get a playset so early and I really wanted to have it in a deck, but I was surprised at exactly how good it is.

However, it does more feel like a "must have" card than "I look forward to playing this!" card, so I'm actually not very excited by what this card is going to mean for the format (or rather, my deck and card selection just shrunk to something closer to Vintage-levels with the number of auto-includes for me). When Green Sun's Zenith came, I really wanted to play Magic because I thought the card was so great, but even though I like the power of Mental Misstep, I don't actually look that much forward to playing with it.

It's good though. Very good.

[bruizar]

Even the non blue decks (by non-blue, I mean no Force, no brainstorm) are packing misstep:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/s...ch_Schutt.html

Called it! This deck definitely loves Misstep, fast Zoo lists most probably should be running Misstep too.

If you watched SCGlive, you'd know that that was the only non-blue list that did so. He had sideboard Submerge, Maindeck Daze, Misstep and Blighted Agent for which he would occasionally fetch a tropical island. There were 0 Zoo lists running Misstep. Perhaps it should go into Zoo, perhaps not, but at that tournament, schutt was the only one. He made an incredible missplay.

Glistener Elf -> Invigorate ->Invigorate, berserk (he had 2 more berserks) and walked into a Submerge. (he could block with 2 toughness)

If he only spent 1 Invigorate and perhaps 2 berserks, he would have forced his opponent to break the Submerge as well, but it would give him enough gas to recover from this.

[ddt15]

I don't know what wizards was smoking when they printed this. Seems the new format is you either play a FoW/Misstep deck or something with big spells that avoid Misstep (Metalworker?). Misstep is definetly the end of Goblins, their one drops are so vital; no Vial/Lackey? No Ringleader. No Ringleader... Fail! Goblins used to be very good vs Fish and Landstill now its not even favorable anymore. Surely this can't be good for the format?

[Sims]

I pop my had back in this thread to the interesting SCG results and see nothing but chicken littles. Come on people, it was the first SCG tournament since the card became legal. Give people time to adapt and test.

The card is a huge boost to blue strategies, to be sure, but it's not the deathknell of every other deck in the format.

[Richard Cheese]

I don't think one large tournament is really a good way to draw broad conclusions about the state of the entire format. Were there so many copies of Misstep in the top 16 because it skews the power of certain decks that much, or was it because there's a ton of hype around the card so everyone wanted to try it out, and Merfolk regained some popularity after winning the last open? I don't think there's really a way to tell conclusively at this point.

[(nameless one)]

I know this is out of topic but I think Mental Misstep is the ticket we need to get Land Tax unbanned!

Hurray for bigger cardpool and new toys!