Why was Mental Misstep banned?
General forum
Posted on Dec. 23, 2013, 11:49 p.m. by thataddkid
It is now banned in legacy and modern, and I don't really see why. It is indeed powerful, but many unbanned cards are on it's power level. Can someone explain why it was banned?
Epochalyptik says... #3
Because it's a free counterspell, playable in any deck, that marginalizes one of the two most important CMCs in Modern and Legacy.
December 23, 2013 11:54 p.m.
I wasn't playing when it was banned, but from what I hear it ruined several decks, such a goblins, which are almost exclusively one drops.
December 24, 2013 12:50 a.m.
Counter is usually seen as a blue ability and it just made it playable in every color deck as epochalyptik said. In my opinion its like taking a kill spell and making it green every color has their own ability and it just made countering easier to more variety of color.
December 24, 2013 1:25 a.m.
Because all decks in Legacy and Modern would start with four copies of Mental Misstep . It's not a problem in Vintage because moxen allow for turn one two drops, unlike other formats. You would need to run four in order to Mental Misstep your opponent's Mental Misstep s.
December 24, 2013 3:21 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #7
It was supposed to be a card that any deck could use to fight against certain Blue-based decks that were really strong at the time, but instead it made those Blue decks even stronger and made several aggro decks almost impossible to play.
December 24, 2013 9:36 a.m.
strateupjee says... #8
When I played Delver while it was standard, pretty much any 1 drop was doomed to die, period. Most decks had both Gut Shot and Mental Misstep , between either main or side, and it just shut down delver as well as most mana dorks, because a turn 0 counter spell or burn spell is broken. It was plain annoying and made 1 drops pretty much unplayable.
December 24, 2013 9:54 a.m.
megawurmple says... #9
Think about how in important and common 1-drops are in Modern (and even a lot of Legacy) decks. Jund, for example, has Thoughtseize , Inquisition of Kozilek , Deathrite Shaman and Lightning Bolt in the one drop slot. A large amount of green decks will run Birds of Paradise and other 1 mana dorks. Red aggro loses Lightning Bolt , Goblin Guide and pretty much all other powerful aggro cards you can think of. Black loses the aforementioned hand disruption and DRS, and white weenies is basically screwed. Other staples like Path to Exile suffer as well. All of this for no mana investment whatsoever. On top of that, any deck can play it, so it's an automatic 4-of in all decks, if only to counter other Mental Misstep . It's stupidly overpowered, and the only colour which doesn't suffer a hugely enormous amounts is blue, which is the colour that also benefits from it most.
December 24, 2013 10:13 a.m.
chicagobearz says... #10
If this card was legal every legacy deck would be forced to run a full set of these. Throwing misstep against an opponents misstep, they counter with misstep which forces you to use a misstep or other counter spell to resolve say Delver of Secrets Flip . You could have 4 cards only in your hand before your first draw. There are couple cards I wish would be taken off the legacy ban list, this is not one.
February 8, 2014 10:34 p.m.
NotSoLuckyLydia says... #11
Very, very little is on the power level of Mental Misstep . On a hilarious side note, I did see some stompy decks performing well while it was legal, but not on a large scale.
February 8, 2014 11:57 p.m.
chicagobearz says... #12
I would love to throw a set in a kitchen table mono green deck. I'll use Gitaxian Probe
in different decks for the sweet hand peek. I like the phyrexian life sac cost. Very useful.
February 9, 2014 12:06 a.m.
Its probably not as good in kitchen table magic. Its strong in legacy and modern, because 1 drops include things like Delver of Secrets Flip or Deathrite Shaman . You probably wouldn't see as much of that stuff, so I don't think it would be as good.
Didgeridooda says... #2
http://manadeprived.com/mental-misstep-and-the-ruining-of-a-format/
December 23, 2013 11:51 p.m.