[SCD] Mental Misstep

[Admiral_Arzar]

Notwithstanding the Reanimator-Merfolk matchup, it's still too early to determine if Mystical Tutor is safe to unban, not to mention counting combo out of the meta.

Oh yeah, I agree with you. That's why everything I've said is firmly in the realm of speculation - I'd like to move this discussion to the B/R speculation thread, honestly.

[joven]

just a few statements:
- Mental Misstep is nothing like FoW (meaning it is not a replacement for FoW)
- There is absolutely no reason to ban FoW. (I think Survival was broken for a long long time, Iona and Vengevine just gave the last tip over the edge.) FoW is not broken, it's not even overpowered (because of the card loss), and I can't imagine that WotC can print a card that turns FoW into a card that has to be banned. I think that is because FoW is a standalone mechanic (as a pitchable counterspell) that doesn't combo, it just counters spells, and just one at a time at a high cost (one additional card loss + 1 life or 5 mana).
- The reason Mental Misstep is bad for the format and for Magic on the whole is IMO that it is a pitchable counterspell that can be played in any deck. Color Pie bye bye! (I never liked the strong restrictions of the color pie myself, but MM is a step too far even for my taste.) And even though being a conditional counterspell it is that strong in Legacy (because every deck has and needs one-drops) that it will possibly be played in nearly all decks.
- MM does the same thing as FoW as I stated above, but just for one-drops and at a significantly lower cost (2 lifes or 1 blue mana), and ... it does that in every imaginable deck (and that's the main problem!).

[FieryBalrog]

Great, I built myself several non-blue Legacy decks (it was a question of what was fun and getting more cards for the money) and of course they just keep getting less competitive.

You pretty much show up with your blue package, + blue duals if its not Fish, or you play kiddy-land Legacy. All other colors are just second-class citizens.

Some things never change over the long run.

[Tammit67]

You pretty much show up with your blue package, + blue duals if its not Fish, or you play kiddy-land Legacy. All other colors are just second-class citizens.

Everyone and their grandma is playing blue right now, so of course it is hard for other combinations to blow the roof off. Just look at the TMI thread that the Hatfields posted. And yet there are still archetypes outside of blue that are doing wonderfully, just very few people sleeve them up. Metalworker decks have a high win percentage, as does zoo.

It is zoo's time to shine. You can quote me on that.

[FieryBalrog]

I looked through the TMI data and all I saw was Merfolk and TA hitting it out of the park.

Great, Zoo did awful in one tournament and good in another overall, and put a whopping one guy into the top 16 over both, while not exactly being underplayed. Room for celebration I guess.

Its good to see the format hasn't gone back to the old Zoo/Merfolk/Countertop metagame and has instead taken a exciting turn into "blue-based aggro-control versus itself".

[Koby]

I looked through the TMI data and all I saw was Merfolk and TA hitting it out of the park.

Great, Zoo did awful in one tournament and good in another overall, and put a whopping one guy into the top 16 over both, while not exactly being underplayed. Room for celebration I guess.

Its good to see the format hasn't gone back to the old Zoo/Merfolk/Countertop metagame and has instead taken a exciting turn into "blue-based aggro-control versus itself".

What do you expect when R&D has been drinking Blue Kool Aid for the past year? Just keep playing Burn with 8 blast SB and you'll be fine.

[FieryBalrog]

What do you expect when R&D has been drinking Blue Kool Aid for the past year? Just keep playing Burn with 8 blast SB and you'll be fine.

You mean the past 18 years?

Like I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. You know in those 3 months between Faeries and Jace, I actually thought wow, things are evening out! Woo!

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Some day people are going to grow testicles and just put Mental Misstep in non-blue decks, and then everyone can be happy.

[Tammit67]

I looked through the TMI data and all I saw was Merfolk and TA hitting it out of the park.

Great, Zoo did awful in one tournament and good in another overall, and put a whopping one guy into the top 16 over both, while not exactly being underplayed. Room for celebration I guess.

Its good to see the format hasn't gone back to the old Zoo/Merfolk/Countertop metagame and has instead taken a exciting turn into "blue-based aggro-control versus itself".

You call under 5% not underplayed? For a deck as well known as zoo? With a known very good merfolk matchup, and a decent TA one? I call that underplayed.

I'll agree with you that zoo putting David Price into the top 16 is not cause for celebration. If more people played Zoo, and they should(!), we'd see more than just him doing well.

[FieryBalrog]

I don't know if the TA matchup is actually "decent". 47% is as Hatfield says "concerning" and the sample size isn't so high.

As for the % representation, only Merfolk and TA are over 5%, everything else is hovering around that number, or less. Zoo, CB, Junk, Affinity, Dredge, Landstill are all within a percentage point of each other.

In any case, Zoo is still just a spoiler deck to Merfolk and that's the only reason to play it right now. There is no other reason you want to be turning dudes sideways and casting burn in today's environment when you can be packing FoW+Misstep+Daze instead.

[Tammit67]

There is no other reason you want to be turning dudes sideways and casting burn in today's environment when you can be packing FoW+Misstep+Daze instead.

But cats and burn beats that! And surely zoo can devote 3 slots to choke/PoP and be golden there. Since as you said everyone who is anyone is playing blue, chances are the higher skilled players aren't the ones winning only 47%.

Even if it is 47/53, thems plenty of room to outplay your opponent. 19 wins to 21 losses means the matchup is can go either way.

[Rune]

Zoo isn't very scary for blue when you can almost always answer their turn 1 play. I'd say the GW Maverick decks with 25+ creatures are much, much better against blue in general.

[nwong]

There is no other reason you want to be turning dudes sideways and casting burn in today's environment when you can be packing FoW+Misstep+Daze instead.

So much for format diversity. Though, I don't have a problem with what you're saying, and probably agree.

[Amon Amarth]

You mean the past 18 years?

Like I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. You know in those 3 months between Faeries and Jace, I actually thought wow, things are evening out! Woo!

Blue has the best mechanics and colors like Red and White get very little. That's pretty much it. It appears that WotC still has a major hardon for making retarded Blue cards. Remember when Jund was good? Many people cried out "oh noes the best deck is not blue wtf skill less bad change now!" And then then Blue was the best. Enter Caw-Blade. Outside of Jund, can you think of any notable time when the best deck wasn't Blue? About the only time that happens is when they print broken non-Blue cards like Clamp or BBE.

[Gheizen64]

Blue has the best mechanics and colors like Red and White get very little. That's pretty much it. It appears that WotC still has a major hardon for making retarded Blue cards. Remember when Jund was good? Many people cried out "oh noes the best deck is not blue wtf skill less bad change now!" And then then Blue was the best. Enter Caw-Blade. Outside of Jund, can you think of any notable time when the best deck wasn't Blue? About the only time that happens is when they print broken non-Blue cards like Clamp or BBE.

Y, outside of goblin, they haven't printed a really good red card in like, ages. Green at least got nacatl , but Goyf, is, again, a blue card at the core (more defensive than offensive, reward playing cantrips + permission etc...)

[DragoFireheart]

Y, outside of goblin, they haven't printed a really good red card in like, ages. Green at least got nacatl , but Goyf, is, again, a blue card at the core (more defensive than offensive, reward playing cantrips + permission etc...)

Tarmogoyf was made green so that you couldn't pitch it to Force of Will.

[Iare]

As I see it people aren't looking at mental misstep as rationally as they should be. Yes, this card makes blue better. Yes, its a free counter spell that doesn't require having an island or having any other blue cards. When building a legacy deck the questions you have to ask in order to evaluate a card are:

1. Does this card contribute to my primary plan.
2. Is this card powerful.
3. Is it in my colors and can I cast it.
4. Is it a "free" counter spell.
5. Is this card better than anything I am running now.

Now I usually play Boros not quite sligh (Go ahead laugh I don't give a F*#@, I race Zoo profitably and rape goblins and Merfolk mercilessly). I looked at Mental Misstep and decided that it does in fact have a place in my deck.

1. It contributes to my plan of play as aggressively as magically possible, I want to play as many spells as quickly as possible and kill my opponent ASAP. I do not want slowed down by anything (Chalice, opposing creatures, MM, removal).

2. Its a counter that costs 0 mana OF COURSE ITS POWERFUL :)

3. I tend to have more than 2 life so yes :P

4. Yes.

5. Previously I was running a full 4 rift bolts in the deck, they are decent enough burn spells that give me the ability to dodge chalice and usually get around counterbalance. They are also far less powerful and flexible than MM is. Mental Misstep allows me to preemptively deal with opposing creatures, stop removal so my creatures can potentially do MORE damage than the rift bolt would, answer chalice outright, counter teh diving top and deal with my newest problem opposing Mental Missteps.... Essentially it deals with problems the deck had that made rift bolt playable (But lets face it, rift bolt isn't exactly a FANTASTIC card) and it does it all without costing me any mana. In testing it also does a good job helping with one of my worst match-ups (Even worst than combo!), and this is Bant with 4 Rhox Warmonk.

The good news is if me and my opponent trade mental missteps my deck is going to capitalize on the fact that they either: Weren't utilizing all their available mana or just shocked themselves in the face, either way I am ahead (Unless this is a mirror match I am very likely ahead since If you aren't sligh or combo you are slower than me). Now in game one Mental Misstep is pretty useless against combo (About as useless as a rift bolt lol) but it helps having it in the 75 since I board in 7 cards and try to keep them off their feet long enough to win.

I know this is a real long post, but essentially mental misstep is a card that everyone should consider running and determine if it has a place in their particular deck (Taking into account their metagame as well). Zoo decks that try to play hyper aggressively should probably consider running it, but I really hope they don't since my testing shows that it puts me even further ahead ;) And, doom sayers should GTFO since MM isn't going to warp the format. It is a good card that will be prevailant in the metagame like many good cards before it.

P.S. If you run 4 daze you need to run no less than 4 Mental Missteps. Anything less is simply a mistake.

[Ziilot]

..answer chalice outright..

Care to elaborate?

[Iare]

Care to elaborate?

Your right I am an idiot :P

Thankfully I havn't had to face a chalice in quite a long time. Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins, Burn and random sui and other randomness make up my meta. And, oddly I have dodged chalice even on MWS for the most part.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

You know, it just dawned on me... Dismember might as well be a blue or green spell, since these are the colors that most want a card with this effect. Outside of cute bullshit and parlor tricks like Lignify, Pongify, etc, these colors just don't usually get access to removal spells. Dismember is still a good black card and a decent red card, but white doesn't really give a fuck about Dismember existing, since it has access to Swords and Path which are better outside of corner case scenarios.

So where am I going with this? The fact that in general, you need to run more of a redundancy of counterspells than you do of removal spells, in order to feel like you're "running the right amount." Going from zero to four (somewhat conditional) removal spells in any given deck is usually a much larger difference than going from zero to four (somewhat conditional) counterspells. The fact that counterspells are usually more flexible than removal spells means that to have 'enough counterspells,' you usually need them to occupy more slots in your deck (if you're going to run them) than the amount of slots you would need to commit in order to feel like you have 'enough removal spells' (if you're going to run them).

The comparison I'm trying to make here is that while Dismember gives its user the most power when it's used as a 'blue or green spell,' Mental Misstep is a better 'blue spell' than it is a spell of any other color. Even though it gives the other colors access to an effect they don't normally have, I think for most non-blue decks, it doesn't give them enough of that effect to get to the threshold where they consistently 'have a counterspell when they need one.' I do agree with Infamous Bear Assassin that there are non-blue decks that would probably gain from using Mental Misstep. And I think people should test it more in non-blue decks that have a list of CMC=1 spells that they want to counter. But overall, I think blue decks gain the most.