Last updated on March 20, 2025
Force of Will | Illustration by Terese Nielsen
A strong cycle of utility lands was spoiled for Tarkir: Dragonstorm yesterday, including one land that does an incredible job of shutting down counterspells! Mistrise Village takes a “if you can't beat them, join them” approach to blue, and reminds us that the best color hosers are often in the color they are hosing. There's a lot to discuss with this one, as it seems poised to make an immediate impact on Standard, Modern, Legacy, Commander, and possibly even Vintage!
Basic Card Evaluation
Mistrise Village is essentially a mono-blue utility land that provides some benefit at the risk of entering tapped (and not being a basic). Where it gets a bit more interesting is the “Mountain or Forest” line, which gives this a different flavor depending on your mana base:
- In a mono-blue deck, this will always enter tapped, but still provides powerful utility against counterspells. Note that this card's color identity is still mono-blue despite mentioning Mountains or Forests, so feel free to play it your Urza, Lord High Artificer deck!
- In a UR or UG deck, this will sometimes enter untapped, especially in older formats with fetch/shocklands. For 2c Standard decks, the odds of this happening is lower, and will likely require your mana base to be built in a specific way (Fabled Passage and the surveil duals come to mind).
- In an actual Temur deck, this should enter untapped a fair amount, but also represents the greatest risk to the mana base when you are actual three colors. It's also going to be tricky to build with in Standard, as many of the dual land options (i.e., fast lands and painlands) will not help you facilitate this.
As for what the card actually does, well, it's kind of like Boseiju, Who Shelters All, but slower and much less risky. Whereas Boseiju has several large deckbuilding costs (always ETBs tapped, colorless, always forced to pay 2 life), this is a tapped Island at worst that does the same thing on a long enough timeline. Crucially, it's also untethered to instants and sorceries, meaning that this can be used to slam anything from Stock Up to Overlord of the Mistmoors down a control player's throat. Boseiju does have one strong upside over Mistvale Village though; you are basically +2 mana with Boseiju compared to this, as paying to make spells uncounterable is -2 mana.
Mistrise in Standard
Mistrise Village will absolutely see Standard play in some form, though the deckbuilding cost associated with it isn't entirely free. As mentioned, it could conceivably go in Mono-U decks, 2c decks, and Temur decks, plus anything 4-5c as well. How popular it is will likely fluctuate with the metagame; lots of blue mirrors should mean more copies, while a metagame full of Mice and Beans will have players trimming theirs. One deck that will likely adopt a couple of copies immediately is WU Omniscience, as a tapped Island is well worth being able to slam Abuelo's Awakening through countermagic. We might even see the deck trim on copies of Grand Abolisher in the sideboard, and just board into a full playset of Mistrise Village!
Mistrise in Pioneer
Mistrise Village seems less poised to make an immediate impact in Pioneer, though decks like 5c Enigmatic Incarnation and Lotus Field Combo will likely adopt it Day 1. Shocklands and Triomes are also worth noting, as both improve the odds that Mistrise will enter untapped relative to Standard.
Mistrise in Modern
Modern is probably going to be the format for Mistrise Village. We've seen Arena of Glory do excellent work in a variety of decks (especially RWx Energy), which sets a precedent for a card like this to do well. It will be adopted in many current blue decks, but may even lead to new builds of Eldrazi/Tron due to the ubiquity of Consign to Memory. Thanks to the brokenness of fetchlands, there is practically no limit to where Mistrise Village can show up, meaning that any big spell deck should at least be considering this card. It definitely won't be a 4-of though, as “I can afford to pay 2 mana to make my spell uncounterable” is not a sentence that applies to most matchups.
Mistrise in Legacy
Wasteland | Illustration by Eytan Zana
Mistrise Village is interesting in Legacy, as the upside is probably even higher than Modern. There are better combos to jam with that need Force of Will protection. One problem for Mistrise Village though is Wasteland, which can not only kill it directly, but may also cause it to enter tapped more often. Legacy is a fast and brutal format where “turn 1 tapped land” is not acceptable, so we'll have to see how many copies of Mistrise Village show up. A miser's copy in Show and Tell combo seems worth trying out!
One last point on Mistrise Village in Legacy that's kind of funny is that you'll never need to use this to play around Daze. It's excellent vs Force of Will, but the 2 mana you spent on this was already Daze protection to begin with!
Mistrise in Vintage
There's a lot of countermagic in Vintage, and having this enter untapped is also pretty free (barring Strip Mine and Wasteland). That means Mistrise Village could see at least 1-of play, though any more copies than that seem very risky.
Mistrise in EDH and (c)EDH
Fierce Guardianship | Illustration by Randy Vargas
Mistrise Village seems like an incredible Commander staple in the making. Players hate getting their big swingy spells countered, and Commander has so many ways to make this enter untapped. Moreover, it can go in any blue deck, all the way from mono-blue to 5c Dragons! There's just so much security here for a low opportunity cost, which means this has all the makings of a chase Commander rare.
It also looks powerful for cEDH, as getting around free counterspells can be game-winning. The opportunity cost for including it is higher than normal EDH games though, as the pace of cEDH is brutally fast, and there will be much more mana denial as well. Still, if you are Izzet, Simic, Temur, or anything in between, you should probably at least consider this in cEDH.
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