Tarkir: Dragonstorm added a whole bunch of cards to Magic: The Gathering. From the main set alone, 252 brand-new cards were created by Wizards of the Coast. With so many moving pieces from new mechanics and new interactions, there’s a lot to figure out. The developers of Magic: Online and MTG Arena, especially, have a lot of work to do for each set release.
Considering the mountain of work that needs to be done, it’s little wonder that, sometimes, mistakes slip through the cracks. Unfortunately, this has happened again with the recent full release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Worryingly, this glitch isn’t just a little snafu that can easily be swept under the rug. While it’s not as bad as ban-worthy past problems, this new glitch definitely has the potential to cause problems.
Mistrise Village Glitch
Despite this seemingly small cost, Mistrise Village isn’t seeing an immense amount of play, since the ability needs to be used in advance. As a result of this, Mistrise Village is currently only seeing fringe play in Legacy, Standard, Modern, and Pioneer, although this amounts to little more than experimentation.
On MTG Arena, a recently discovered glitch makes Mistrise Village a lot more powerful than it’s supposed to be. Instead of Mistrise Village just making the next spell uncounterable, it also makes spells on the stack uncounterable. Not only does this mean that Mistrise Village can make multiple spells uncounterable, but you can also make spells uncounterable at instant speed.
Originally, this bug was spotted by Reddit user DistinguishedNarwhal, who stated this glitch can “make the previous spell uncounterable.” In our own testing, however, we’ve discovered that this glitch is much more widespread and powerful.
For starters, as soon as you activate Mistrise Village, every spell you’ve cast on the stack will be uncounterable. Additionally, every spell you cast onto the stack after activating Mistrise will also be uncounterable until one of your uncounterable spells resolve. At the very least, this means you can use Mistrise as instant counter protection for just two mana.
Illegal Play Patterns
This bug essentially removes the major downside associated with playing Mistrise Village. Rather than needing to spend your mana beforehand, usually signaling a big play, you can simply hold it up in response. This gives players significantly expanded flexibility, as you can be reactive rather than proactive.
Provided you have two mana open, the glitched Mistrise Village is a nigh-unstoppable way to make an opponent’s counterspell fizzle. The only defense against this is to counter the ability itself using a card like Stifle, or to respond to the activation with yet another counterspell. If you don’t have this hand, Mistrise will two-for-one you, which is obviously hugely punishing.
Unsurprisingly, having a repeatable counterspell counter for just two mana is pretty powerful and definitely not intended. While it won’t single-handedly break every MTG Arena format, it nonetheless makes a lot of decks stronger. Being able to prevent removal or ensure your own counterspell lands will massively impact counterplay potential.
Currently, it’s unclear exactly how many MTG Arena players are exploiting the glitch as it exists right now. While this is a glitch, and one which should be patched out soon, it may be worth running some extra land destruction or Stifles in your sideboard for the time being.
Should be Fixed Soon
The slight silver lining to this situation is that Wizards of the Coast already knows that this glitch exists. Responding to DistinguishedNarwhal’s original post, WotC_Jay stated they’ll be “passing this report on to our QA team for verification.” Ideally, this means the bug will be fixed sooner rather than later, but that remains to be seen.
Hopefully, if all goes well, Wizards will be able to fix this issue by next Tuesday, since MTG Arena is usually updated weekly. Alternatively, if there’s no simple fix to the problem, it may be best to disable the card outright until things are working as intended. Right now, it seems unlikely that Wizards will choose this nuclear option, but it is nonetheless a possibility.
As always, as tempting as it might be, you shouldn’t go out and abuse this big. Wizards of the Coast has banned players for exploiting bugs in the past, so the same could theoretically happen here.