Mizzium Meddler is undercosted

Unknown · February 2016

Surely this was overlooked with Harbinger/bounce. A 4/7 with his ability is way too cheap for 9. Jace decks can easily pump out one on consecutive turns or two in one turn on occasion. Except for bounce (ironically) and unholy hunger (assuming the response card is ready or almost ready) there's no way to deal with it. Even one, but especially two, on the board is game over for blue and white, and usually red unless you have burn cards full of mana or a combo of burn and something on the board like Embermaw or Iroas, it's game over.

Harbinger was better, but in terms of how crippling MM's effect is I'd rather play against Harbinger, even without its nerf. MM can single ha deadly shut down an opponent by limiting all matches to only 3 mana gain max, and only allowing you to play one card/fill one card per turn. So if you don't have an answer ready like bounce/unholy hunger/exquisite fire craft +pw ability (limited options), it's going to be a long game, and likely a loss.

If a 4/4 defender/first strike rare is costed at 16, then a 4/7 with this devastating game control ability should be in that range or more, especially with Jace's mana producing. Costing this card at 9 is a joke.

Unknown · February 2016

I think his cost is fine (because I like the card lol) but the 7 toughness is the weird thing to me.

If it was a 4/4 with its current power I think it wouuld be okay.

At most I would make it a 4/7 for 12 too.

Unknown · February 2016

Yeah, either decrease the toughness or increase the cost. Or let mana be added to more than one card. Even green can't play a 4/7 for 9. A vanilla 4/7 for 9 is kind of ahead of the curve, and just unbelievable for blue. I know it's fun, but pick up a white or green deck and play a handful of games against a MM deck. Even a mediocre blue deck with MM will usually beat you when it draws MM , and it's frustrating because it shuts down your hole deck.

Unknown · February 2016

MM's ability is fairly easy to beat, if you have the right card(s) in your deck. Just place the card you want to receive mana last in your hand and lock a card with a casting cost of 3 or less mana in the first position. Regardless of whether or not a card such as this exists in your hand, just place the card you want to cast next in the last position.

Unknown · February 2016

Please, I know how to play against and beat MM. As you can see in the original post, I mention a couple of the cards to respond to MM, but there are VERY few options to a 7 toughness creature. Your comment has nothing to do with my obvious point that Mizzium Meddler's cost is too low.

I freaking know that it adds mana to your last card, but it only adds 3 even if you should be getting 4/5/6 AND it only adds mana to one card per turn. Need 2 DD cards to take him out and only need 2 mana for play the first one? Too bad have to wait till next turn. Oh, wait, AI played another MM because it only costs 9.

All that Jace needs top play MM first turn is one blue 3 match and any other non enemy color. I can't think of any other color that can play a4/7 vanilla creature for 9. One of the most efficient costed creatures is Herald of the Pantheon, a 4/4 for 7, with nice, but not that great ability. MM adds 3 toughness and a dominating ability for only 2 mana, in blue.

Look at another rare 4/7 in black, Graveblade Marauder, costs 15. Its abilities are deathtouch, berserker and extra damage if unblocked. Pretty good, but nowhere near as game changing as MM. So why does that cost 15 and MM cost 9?

Unknown · February 2016

Just make it an x/3 or x/4. That'll make it way weaker.

BlackSheep101 · February 2016

That's what I was thinking. Its unique ability will still make it qualify as a rare. It doesn't need to be ultra-efficient on top of that.

Morphis · February 2016

Beside the ridiculous stat for the mana, what I think makes the card op for its cost us the way the effect is implemented...
I think devs thought it would spread mana gain around making it difficult to channel in the cards you want but what happens is that basically negates any cascade effect. Once your last card is full mana you are done for the turn basically. No other card will most likely be powered.

I think there are 2 to ways to rework that could balance it:

1- make the first card lose mana first and after gain the mana. This would lead to the chance of filling the first card too if it is low(max 5/6 on average) mana cost. Right now instead you can have a nissa pilgrimage on first slot and never full it cause it keeps getting full and after drained.
(I know switching cards.. What I mean is if I put what I want in last slot, that is he only thing I will be able to cast in the turn no matter what I have in other slots...)
2 - change the effect to give the mana to the last card NOT FULL in your hand. This ways cascades are not totally wasted. To be noted that if your last card is missing 1 mana and you get 3 from transfer, the excess would not be given to the ante past card. So cascades would still be affected but not completely denied.

EDHdad · February 2016

The paper Mizzium Meddler is a 1/4 for 3. It has flash, and when it enters the battlefield, you can redirect a spell or ability to it. So, it's a fixed version of Spellskite.

With the paper card, it's probably intended to be able to eat a Lightning Bolt. By making it 7 toughness, the developers probably figured it was impervious to Exquisite Firecraft. In paper Magic, however, a Mizzium Meddler will be killed by Exquisite Firecraft.

I agree that Mizzium Meddler is a beating. I would agree with making its toughness 4 or 5, possibly Nerfing its power, and allowing the mana shifting ability to fill the 2nd card from the bottom when the bottom card is full.

I never had one, so I didn't realize it only cost 9.

Irgy · February 2016

The card is currently auto-win when you play it against the AI - the AI just simply can't deal with it at all.

I do confess I haven't played against it a lot but I'm quite surprised to hear humans have trouble with it though. At face value the ability is net neutral with mana, it only really does anything at all when the last card in hand overflows, so if you took that aspect away the ability would be pointless (other than the ongoing use case of screwing with the AI). Yes it also spreads mana around but that can be a good or a bad thing depending on what you've got.

It doesn't counter all cascades, it just counters cascades that you weren't expecting, and only then when you've put a nearly-full card in the last slot. Note that if a card is almost full you can cast it from the second slot so long as you match one of your good colours and overflow into it, allowing you to leave an emptier card in the last slot to absorb cascades.

I'm not saying the ability is never an inconvenience I'm just saying it should be far from completely crippling if managed properly.

The only thing wrong with the card really is its stats, which I agree are gratuitously large. But it's not that different to many other cards with stats seemingly dropped out of a bucket. Playing blue and black I couldn't care less what stats cards have most of the time, but for the sake of those colours that do care I agree they could be lowered.

I guess what I'm saying is lower the stats, sure, but don't nerf the ability itself.

Morphis · February 2016

The problem is that this game is balanced around cascades being it intentional or lucky ones.... Most cards cost at least 8 mana to say the least while a single match of 3 gives 6 max(that only for jace others 5). That means without cascades(again not talking only of lucky ones)you would not even be able to cast a spell each turn on average.
The fact mizzium screws cascades is what makes it too strong. Many times the ai gets lucky 4/5 cascades... Without mizzium is oh **** time.
With him is meh ok gotta bounce whatever he had in last spot and dropped on field.
That is too much of a difference.

As I suggested the change would just avoid the complete denial of cascade mana while keeping the reduction in effectiveness of cascades.
So the effect would still be to slow down opponent but not as much as it does now.

Unknown · February 2016

I just have to add in that I agree MM is OP and undercosted. When MM comes out in my opponent's deck, I know it's all over but the crying. I do the switching the card I want to cast to last position, but it's over 9 out of 10 times. This card needs to be nerfed.

TKC · February 2016

Yay, more blue nerfing proposals. MM is easily played around, but more to the point, people aren't looking at the options each color has as a whole. For the most part, other colors get much better creatures than blue, for the same cost. Can't the color have anything nice?

BlackSheep101 · February 2016

A blue creature that's 4/7 for 9 is already undercosted. When that same creature comes with a unique ability that drives the AI haywire, you get this thread.

Unknown · February 2016

Blue also has some of the best creatures in the game.

Mizzium Meddler is undercosted

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