How viable are provoke-style mechanics across MTG formats?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

These are fictional card ideas, but only for an example:

Provoke W

Instant - Rare

Target creature attacks this turn if ablle.

Draw a card.

==

Lornful Siren 1U

Creature - Siren - Rare

T: Target creature attacks this turn if able.

2/2

==

The idea is to force your opponent to attack into a bad creature matchup, where hopefully the opponent loses more stuff than you lose.

[AI Opinion]

“Must attack if able” effects are very meta-dependent in MTG.

They shine in Limited and some slower casual formats, where board stalls happen and you can engineer bad blocks or swing tempo. In competitive Constructed, they’re usually too low-impact compared to pure removal, bounce, or exile.

Your instant that cantrips is decent in Limited. The tap-ability creature is riskier, since sorcery-speed telegraphing lets opponents play around it. They become best when paired with deathtouch, big defenders, or punishment effects like Gideon-style “must attack me” or cards like Hissing Miasma.

[Cyfris]

It's crap. So is goad. There are so many better options.. only time it would be good is in a deck that benefits from being attacked.. the is a white card that says something like when you get attacked by two or more creature this thing triggers. then it has some viability but even then its weak.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

What if you had a punisher enchantment, like "No Mercy" on the battlefield? you could use this to wipe your opponent's creatures out one or two at a time.

[Cyfris]

no because you would be dead. so to not be dead then you have to do this thing and then you would have to do a lifegain thing too.. then you still have to do a win the game thing. a lot of things to do and not enough cards

[SeekerOfTruth007]

Only I've played a U/G/W Prison deck competitively and maintained a 95% win percentage against pro gamers before.

I like asking Rhetorical questions.

Back in the day, this deck made people rage quit game 1 and then forfeit the match, even if they were a pro gamer.

4 Wrath of God
4 Vengeful Dreams
4 Life Burst
4 Static Orb
4 Icy Manipulator
4 Fog
4 Tangle
4 Memory Lapse
4 Gerrard's Wisdom
2 Millstones
24 lands

This deck made everyone except the heavy blue decks tap out and rage quit in an Extended format back in 2002, and Im the one who was playing the heavy blue deck that beat all the other heavy blue decks too. I was playing Prison as a second deck when I got bored with the countermagic deck.

Life gain can work and milling can work. This deck intentionally has 2 extra cards to help increase the likelihood of just barely milling out the opponent.

Here's anotherh one from around 2001 which was heavily defensive and ran no creatures.

4 Death Grasp
4 Phyrexian arena
4 Life Burst
4 Duress
4 Gerrards Verdict
4 Vindicate
4 Wrath of God
4 Dark Ritual
4 Disenchant
24 lands

I literally beat people who had Vintage/Type 1 decks who missed their turn 1/turn 2 kill and I went on to win the game, because I disrupted their hand so much and gained so much life. Had people rage quit against me even in T1 tournament and friendly games with this second deck. This was also in an "Extended format", but I would play against anyone.

[Cyfris]

Yeah I had blink deck that was the same until the bans hit. the problem is those things never last. I don't know your format specfically. You couldn't play most of those cards here where I am. Anytime anything wins more then 60% of the time though for as long as I have played magic it get nerfed or something happens to overcome it because to many players complain when things aren't fair

[SeekerOfTruth007]

The prison deck was beatable by U/G control.

The card that got banned back then from my main U/G control deck was Nostalgic Dreams, the other card from the same set of 5 cards as Vengeful Dreams (also broken).

[SeekerOfTruth007]

The "Extended" format used to be defined as the last two entire Standard Formats combined. So Standard was two blocks of sets, Extended was 4 blocks of sets.