Mystical Tutor's place in Control

[Kerzkid11]

Lately there has been more talk then ever about cutting Mystical Tutor from Control decks such as Keeper, "Scepeter.dec", U/r, Hulk, and Neo-GAT. \


It is said that even with Long dead, the format is still a fast one and the card disadvantage really takes a large toll. When Ancestral Recall is fetched:

Mystical: -1 Card in Hand
Draw Step: Get Tutored Card
Cast Recall: -1 Card
Resolve Recall: +3 Cards

So when fetched, you get +1 Card Advantage. Pretty Mediocre, no?

Mind Twist is a powerful target, but it is being cut from most control decks for its own slowness.

It obviously has other targets, but this leaves us with just Yawgmoth's Will. That is the huge plus of Mystical, it gets the most powerful card in the game.

Mystical can also get an answer to a creature or a Wish -> answer in a pinch.

Does Mystical still belong in control in 2003?

[Tristal]

Mind Twist, Balance, Ancestral, Time Walk, Swords, Fire/Ice, Cunning Wish, Demonic Tutor, and over half your sideboard.  I would NEVER cut this.

[injectilio]

It seems to be seperated between the hulk, GAT and oft times keeper vs scepter and u/r, where the former needs mystical to search for the vital bombs usually powered by a drain whereas the later uses it to set up a solution or a situation in which they will gain a size-able board advantage.
More and more have I been tutoring in keeper for decree or twist mid-game to set a clock.
@tristal The redundancy in keeper creates so many answers that mystical does not warrent it's inclusion to fetch answers and therefor it usually gets used to grab cards that put you in a winning position.

[jpmeyer]

Pretty much the only reason that I still run it in Tog is because it only costs U and I'm already maxed out on Ancestral and AK, yet I want another "draw spell."

[SummenSaugen]

In terms of keeper, why would you EVER take out Mystical Tutor?  It fetches, um...  ANYTHING IN YOUR DECK.

I will refrain from mentioning other decks, because I haven't put any thought in to them.

[Samite Healer]

Quote (Kerzkid11 @ Dec. 07 2003,17:40)Mind Twist is a powerful target, but it is being cut from most control decks for its own slowness.

I totally disagree with the idea the Mind Twist should be removed from Keeper.  I haven't cut it, and after extensive playtesting with and without it, it has truly demonstrated it's brokenness.

Quote It obviously has other targets, but this leaves us with just Yawgmoth's Will. That is the huge plus of Mystical, it gets the most powerful card in the game.

Yawgmoth's Will is an excellent target, but it is by NO means the only other card to fetch.  I have often fetched Cunning Wish and Decree depending on the situation.  Also, after sideboarding Mystical Tutor helps a lot in certain matchups; it finds a Rack and Ruin quickly against Stax/MUD, and sometimes Deep Analysis when I board them in.

Quote Mystical can also get an answer to a creature or a Wish -> answer in a pinch.

This and for the above reasons is what makes the card good.

Quote Does Mystical still belong in control in 2003?

Hands down, YES!

[Eastman]

Quote (Samite Healer @ Dec. 07 2003,21:06)

Quote (Kerzkid11 @ Dec. 07 2003,17:40)Mind Twist is a powerful target, but it is being cut from most control decks for its own slowness.

I totally disagree with the idea the Mind Twist should be removed from Keeper.  I haven't cut it, and after extensive playtesting with and without it, it has truly demonstrated it's brokenness.

Quote It obviously has other targets, but this leaves us with just Yawgmoth's Will. That is the huge plus of Mystical, it gets the most powerful card in the game.

Yawgmoth's Will is an excellent target, but it is by NO means the only other card to fetch.  I have often fetched Cunning Wish and Decree depending on the situation.  Also, after sideboarding Mystical Tutor helps a lot in certain matchups; it finds a Rack and Ruin quickly against Stax/MUD, and sometimes Deep Analysis when I board them in.

Quote Mystical can also get an answer to a creature or a Wish -> answer in a pinch.

This and for the above reasons is what makes the card good.

Quote Does Mystical still belong in control in 2003?

Hands down, YES!

my thoughts exactly.

It's also indispensable in Hulk, chronic, and GAT.

[Ultima]

Actually, its important to note that Mystical Tutor also fetches another very important sorcery, namely Decree of Justice, which I was under the impression was the premier card of Keeper lately.

Mystical Tutor is card disadvantage, that's true.  However, I find that its card disadvantage is vastly overshadowed by its ability to tutor up the right answer without the loss of life which is actually something Keeper watches for with 2 scrying.  Additionally, its always an amazing card to see when playing matchups with alot of discard.

When viewing what one could take out for mystical, the ideas are just too sub-optimal to really bear.  What else is really there; Merchant Scroll(talk about narrow and slow), Vampiric Tutor(also guilty of the accused "card disadvantage" and more life loss), and Lim Dul's Vault(more life loss, stacking has poor synergy with Keeper as it is reactive control as opposed to proactive, and color dependent which is not what you want in an environment with this many wastes going around.)    

That is of-course assuming that your replacing 1 tutor for another.  Replacing a tutor for anything that isn't some other form of search or draw really changes the deck's overall control aspect where you don't want to be.

[westredale]

Mystical is card disadvantage and we all 'should' know that tutor chains are generally too slow and a waste of resources. I'd rather play an answer then something that finds an answer.

[PhOeNiX]

I always saw that the initial card disadvantage of Mystical Tutor is always outwieghed by the stellar card advantage of what it fetches, the more important being Balance, Mind Twist, and Yawgmoth's Will.

There have been so many games where I Mana Drain followed by a Mystical Tutor for Mind Twist to essentially seal the game.

At worst, it pitches to FoW

[Dr. Sylvan]

One time my friend was proxying up Keeper to playtest with me, got to the Mystical Tutor, picked up a random card, and wrote "GET RECALL" on it. That by itself would be a pretty good. Merchant Scroll and Vampiric Tutor have already been cut from most Keepers, and I think not enough people are remembering that Balance can be the most important card in your deck in an aggro matchup. At any stage of the game, Mystical gets a card you can use. With the move away from permanent-based aggro answers like Abyss/Moat, Mystical is now more than ever Demonic Tutor #2.

[BreathWeapon]

The real question is, what do you replace it with? Another Cunning Wish???

I see all sorts of Keeper lists missing 1 or 2 of the follwing,

Mystical Tutor
Balance
Mind Twist

I think their are legitimate reasons to cut each depending on your meta. Mind Twist is really slow these days. Spoils-Mask and Spoils Dragon will decide the game before Mind Twist is pertinant. Prison.dec will drop its hand before Manadrain/Mindtwist becomes a reality. The increase of Stifle in the environment pushes the fundamental turn of UU for Manadrain back a turn easily. Scepter.dec will decrease their hand size quickly with Scepter drops, which protects their most valuable cards from Hand Destruction. Mindtwist has always been so-so against fast aggro like Suicide, Stompy, Goblins. Its hard to see where Mindtwist really belongs anymore. So, its good against Classical Control like Keeper and Hulk,Aggro-Control like Fish and GAT, and maybe B/U/g Dragon?

Balance is a little more complicated of an issue. It pretty much hoses Aggro in all forms, and with Stifle becoming popular in Control LD wars could make up for a severe beating to your manabase by destroying your opponents after landing at a disadvantage, no pun intended. If your playing a Scepter.dec, the increased speed at which you drop hand also makes Balace a little better. Still, decks dump their hands REALLY fast in today's T1. Its also kind of poor in the Dragon matchup.

Which brings us to Mystical Tutor. The strength of Mystical tutor is its ability to find BOMBS, not answers ... tho' it can. I think Keeper players need to asses how many MD bombs their running outside of Decree and Yawgmoth's Will, and then decide whether or not to include Mystical Tutor. When it comes to just finding answers, Cunning Wish is probably better than Mystical Tutor.

Anybody disagree with that?

[jpmeyer]

There were certain circumstances which made Balance and Twist cuttable.  Balance was cuttable back pre-Mirrodin when combo, Tog, and Mud were the best decks and Keeper was only running 4 Moxes.  Now, with Keeper going back to 5 Moxes and usually also running multiple Isochron Scepter, there's no excuse at all to leave it out.

Mind Twist was cuttable when Chalice of the Void was making most of your opponent's draws dead.  There was no need to Twist their hand when they're locked out.  Now that most people aren't running Chalice maindeck anymore, there's no excuse to cut Twist (I will note though that I think that it is more of a sideboard card in Tog, with its real purpose being mostly to strip SB'ed in removal/REBs.)

Unless you're making some super-Scepter lock deck or something and you're incredibly redundant so that you can be sure that you're Sceptering up something good, Mystical is too important to cut because of how it fetches the big four non-Ancestral cards in Keeper (Will, Twist, Balance, and Decree.)\n\n

[Fastbond]

What Mystical is good at is fetching balance.  Mystical is good because of four cards:  Ancestral Recall, Balance, Yawgmoth's Will, and Timetwister.  If you have Ancestral Recall in your deck and use one of those three other cards you want Mystical Tutor.  Mystical is great because it can fetch three good effects and cycle via ancestral if you don't have the mana or they aren't good right now.

[Smash]

Quote (Fastbond @ Dec. 07 2003,20:44)What Mystical is good at is fetching balance.  Mystical is good because of four cards:  Ancestral Recall, Balance, Yawgmoth's Will, and Timetwister.  If you have Ancestral Recall in your deck and use one of those three other cards you want Mystical Tutor.  Mystical is great because it can fetch three good effects and cycle via ancestral if you don't have the mana or they aren't good right now.

Does twister deserve a spot back? With a lot of dragon I guess it could be nice to get rid of the squee and dragon's they have set up, but it does possibly win them the game next turn

OTHER than the biggies (twist, balance, yawg, decree), I think it is also important to note that it

a) Fetches wish. Without it, I would need 3 to be comfortable. With it, I have ran 2 wishes and done okay (really missed third though).
b) Fetches the goddies to imprint with secepter.

Heck, this weekend in my scepterish keeper build I chose to run Mystical over FoF. That has to say something about a card being  

[VideoGameBoy]

Quote Additionally, its always an amazing card to see when playing matchups with alot of discard.

Frankly, this is the main reason it will never be cut.

End of discussion.

[Kerzkid11]

Quote (VideoGameBoy @ Dec. 08 2003,17:56)

Quote Additionally, its always an amazing card to see when playing matchups with alot of discard.

Frankly, this is the main reason it will never be cut.

End of discussion.

Justifying a card because it is good against discard is very, very flawed. Just wanted to let you know. I don't favor cutting it either, though.

[specialk]

The use of Mystical Tutor has little to do with card disadvantge and more about card quality.  In a deck such as keeper where your draws can be bombs in certain match ups it is very useful.  Mystical Tutor also helps set yourself up with game breaking plays such as Drain into a Mindtwist or Yawgmoth's Will.  Even if your opponent sees the card you look for they should be scared since it means that you set yourself up for a game breaking play which most cases should make winning the game alot easier and sometime effortless..

[Maxx Matt]

Talking about Keeper:

It fetches:
Removals
Drawers
Broken
Winners
Counters
Wish
Helps you to recover from a Duress or a MindTwist
Definetively is not only a poor "Draw3AfterCastingAncestrall"


Talking about Hulk:
The same as Keeper but it can't fetch the Winners


Talking about L&S ( Lock & Stock ):

It fetches all your Drawers
All your tutors for drawers
Yawgmoths' Will


Even if it takes a turn to be effective the raw power of the cards chosen from time to time and his extreme versatility COSTING YOU ONLY ONE MANA () deserves a spot in every decks being able to abuse it.

Control decks are, by definition, the only ones.\n\n

[Montana_Gamer]

I would rather play a vampiric tutor, because it fetches an abyss game 1, and COP:red game 2, and with most of my matches in the real world being against aggro decks, I feel that a vampiric tutor fits my metagame better.

[jshields]

i definitely continue to use my mystical tutors main deck.  i may be a budget player, but i am not a stupid player for blue

[ump]

So everybody likes Mystical Tutor.  How many people like Mystical Tutor if they maindeck Vampiric Tutor?  The obvious reason to run a maindeck Vampiric Tutor is to fetch those bombs that Mystical Tutor can't, such as Enchantments.

[BreathWeapon]

I really think it comes down to having a "better" card than Mystical Tutor to replace it. Simply put, there isn't one available.

Vampiric seems to be relegated to the SB for C.Wish on account of it being off color and inflicting 2 damage, while at the same time being more versatile. Its arguably a stronger position for the card.

[Rico Suave]

I prefer Mystical over Vamp for 3 reasons:
1) It's pitchable, which helps to make up for any "card disadvantage" that might result.
2) It's much easier to cast, because U is far more plentiful than B.
3) There are enough things like fetchlands and Skeletal Scrying which sap life, not to mention aggro decks.  Life may not be the most precious resource, but it's still not a bad one to have.

You know, I was just thinking how cool it would be to have Mystical Tutor unrestricted again.  I would certainly run multiples in something like Keeper.

[BreathWeapon]

Well, I think we have established that Mystical Tutor is worth including in Keeper, but what about U/r? I've cut mine for Future Sight and haven't looked back yet.

[Toad]

I've never played Mystical Tutor in Urphidian or Mono Blue, because there are simply not enough instants to fetch that are worth losing a draw, besides Ancestral Recall. The strengh of these decks is their extreme redundancy, which is why tutors are not needed and Impulse better, even in the Scepters builds.

[PhOeNiX]

I agree as there aren't much cards to make up for the card disadvantage in these decks sans Ancestral Recall.

Keeper has stuff like Balance, Mind Twist, and YAWGMOTH'S WILL.

If I were to run any form of tutorage in Urphidian it would probably be Merchant Scroll. Impulse is also a good digger.

[Dream_Merchant]

thats true, U/r is all about redundancy, the tutor's targets arent that good to drain your hand size down .. dont be surprised that if you search your library for the desired card it ends up being the first one anyway