General Mental Magic

I feel like this is a format that has kind of gotten swept under the rug with cubes of all kinds popping up everywhere and EDH being all over. I think it's probably one of the sweetest most challenging formats around though and it kind of is a cube of sorts. It really makes you have to dig deep and there's tons of possibilities. Anybody here play a lot or have a dedicated mental magic stack? Any strategies in particular you love? Would love to hear from you guys on this.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I've played it once and really liked it, but as a relative newcomer to Magic it was super difficult. I read an article once on the format (I think it was SCG) that was really good. Anybody have the link?
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
This is one of those formats that make me feel like a scrub, in the Sirlin definition of the word. Like, when I played it, it was really fun because we all sucked and were just scratching our heads and throwing like, Scavenging Oozes onto the table and casting Ancestral Recall every chance we could (or Mental Misstep). But if one of us went all arms race with it and became awesome, it would cease to be fun unless the others do the same. I guess that's the EDH problem, but I really don't have the energy or desire to become great at Mental Magic.

Further, if I were awesome, I feel like it'd be even harder to get people to play. A good Mental Magic player will wipe the floor with a rookie 100% of the time.

These are kind of meta issues, but for anyone interested in actually playing Mental Magic it's probably a very real consideration.
 
But if one of us went all arms race with it and became awesome, it would cease to be fun unless the others do the same.

This is my experience with the format. One local had a mental magic stack that was relatively popular until a couple people went super serious, and everyone else just lost interest.
 

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Is this like the Scrabble problem, where you have to do a bunch of rote memorization to be any good at the game?
 
Is this like the Scrabble problem, where you have to do a bunch of rote memorization to be any good at the game?
Not at all. If you own a cube or play cube regularly you should already have a good grasp on the kinds of cards you want to be casting. I mean people who have been playing longer are gonna know cards that seem random like Seedtime but it's still a pretty level playing field.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
yeah I've only ever played mental magic as a Type 4 esque format (infinite mana) with a hand size of 1 (and the same card can't be cast twice in the same game), so it was all about knowing obscure cantrips and buyback cards of ages past.
 
I pretty much just always slam z first pick and move in. It's probably my favorite archetype to force.
 
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