I enjoyed the show. I watch these anyways but I was really interested to see how all the Lavinia decks played out in this series. My take-away from this session was that while the card might be horrible to play against when it is out, the decks that play a strategy where a hate bear like this makes sense tend to have less dynamic win conditions.
I agree that it is ok to hold out for a win condition. It's justifiable to want to see what their plan to win the game is. That way you know if you are dealing with a mentor plan, tinker, tendrils, etc... I don't hold it against opponents when they do this to me and I hope they don't when I do it to them.
That said, once they demonstrate a win, I scoop every time. I don't like to get wins via the clock. It's an unfortunate necessity of MTGO and overall I like that each player gets equal time.
@ChubbyRain to say "And I'm sorry, if your deck folds to Mental Misstep, it's probably not a very good deck to begin with." is a bit unfair. Single hate cards can foil otherwise good decks.
For example if you followed legacy around the time Mental Misstep was banned in legacy, the High Tide deck started being a real player for quite a bit of time. It would not be fair to call that deck bad - it just struggled to fight through one specific heavily played hate card.
I like constant reevaluation of meta games. We could swing the whole process the other way. Many of the great 1-drop cards on the restricted list were put there before the printing of Misstep. Maybe since this car exists, they unrestrict fastbond, mystical tutor, imperial seal, or demonic consultation.
Having the conversation is, in my opinion, healthy...
Let me start by saying Mental Misstep:
- Is not broken
- Does not fit the guidelines for (vintage) restriction
- Vintage is in a pretty good place
That said, Misstep is by far my least favorite unrestricted card. I am a brewer at heart and Misstep does impact my ability to brew a consistently competitive deck.
While there is a good variety of viable decks, there are really only two viable castable archetypes right now - counter spell based deck or lock based decks. The other decks either don't have to cast spells to win (Bazaar decks) or only need to land a single spell (Oath decks)
With Misstep so heavily played, any deck trying to fight outside these spaces need to give up their opportunity cost of using limited early mana to progress their board state with one drops while the Misstep deck can progress their board state without need to use that limited early mana.
This keeps out more than just the more common known decks like welder decks, crop rotation decks, or ritual decks. It also stops yet to be proven potential decks like infect, non-prison zoo, and skull clamp decks.
The good news is that with the benefit of the rise of Survival Salad, Misstep has even fewer good targets. If the meta shifts enough that Misstep is dead more often, the number of copies will shrink. It looks as if this is already happening.
The one thing I think we can agree on is that we won't all agree. I will forever desire for shifting metas. Others like as little change as possible. Neither is absolutely right. Unless WOTC decided to start banning Vintage the same way they do Modern, I'll have to settle with playing decks that I am less excited about. At the end of the day, these are still pretty fun games - even if I feel the deck is stale.
@Hrishi I agree. No need to ban anything but I'd like them to take some stuff off.
I loved part 1 (and I'm sure I'll love the rest). I also look forward to the printed version. Thank you for putting this together.
Thank you for the thoughts. I guess I look at sportsmanship through the vein on American Football. When you are up and there is seconds left in the game, you take a knee. You don't try for a superfluous TD. I also don't feel like the losing team should just walk off the field once they know they are out of it. They line up and finish the game despite knowing they cannot win.
I probably should just scoop. It will likely always be a pet peeve of mine. Attacking me for 20 or 120 give you the exact same win and I do feel like it is showboating. To be fair, my response was a bit immature so I have some lessons I can learn myself.
I've had a trend of opponents that continue to xerox out pyromancer/mentor tokens when they have an attacking win on the board. Yesterday, this happened twice while I was empty handed so there was no threat that I could do anything to win the game.
I tend to play to a win, so I'll scoop with an attacking win or a demonstrated combo loop, but I expect people to win when they are able. I don't feel like I should have to scoop because they want to see how many tokens they can make. It's a waste of my time. Am I in the wrong here to be upset that these opponents don't just win the game?