Is Mind Crush Good Against Blue Eyes Deck

Mind Crush has been heavily used in the current metagame.

After I had tried it for a month or so, I dislike it.

Everyone is saying that Mind Crush is good because there are 3x Pot of Duality and other search engine cards, e.g. Agent-Earth. It sounds ideal. However, it doesn't really gain advantage.

Type: Trap
Category: Normal

Declare 1 card name. If that card is in your opponent's hand, they must discard all copies of it in their hand to the Graveyard. If it is not, you randomly discard 1 card.

Back to basic. Mind Crush does a one for one card trade with the opponent unless opponent has multiple copies. It is uncommon for a player to search out another copy of a card when he already has one. Assuming there's only one copy of the named card, there isn't an advantage gained after Mind Crush is used.

Some may argue that one can at least look at opponent's hand and the advantage is outside basic card advantage. But you don't exactly look at your opponent's hand when Mind Crush resolves. There were times whereby my opponent just shows me his hand as if it's a Trap Dustshoot when I activate Mind Crush. Probably that was the only time when I feel Mind Crush is awesome.

There were other times when my opponent used Mind Crush on me, and I just briefly showed my hand. They complain to the judge that I didn't let them look at my hand. So I explained to the judge about the ruling and how this should resolve. The judge then asked "How 'brief' is your 'briefly'?". Well, I actually held my hand out without covering more than half of each card, and my opponent had time to move his head over and look at them. My opponent argued, "but I only saw 3 cards, XXX, YYY, ZZZ.". Come on! That showed that I had already shown my hand longer than required. Anyway, there are many players who cover the cards before showing it to the opponent, and one can barely even see the color of the cards.

Back to topic. It is usually a one for one card trade. Mind Crush is a reactive card, because it generally requires you to know at least one card in opponent's hand to be useful. So, it does not give card advantage, no hand information, and being reactive. It doesn't sound that good, does it? Furthermore, it may just be a dead card when it is drawn. Let's assume it is a side deck material card, and one will only use the card against deck that searches often. It can prevent a card from being played before it is actually played out from hand. So here is my argument, is it worthy to play a reactive card when there are other choices that can stop the key cards that are being searched out?

One example is Agent-Venus. It can be searched out by Agent-Earth and also be added to hand through Pot of Duality. These are the two main timing when you will name Agent-Venus with Mind Crush. It seems better to me that I play other traps that can stop Agent-Venus. First of all, shit can happen. Secondly, the time frame that this card can be used is very limited. Mind Crush has to be used on the turn whereby you know a card in opponent's hand, or the next turn. It is because you will not know whether there's another chance to use it after opponent is going to use that searched card. Thirdly, it does not exactly generate concrete advantage as I had mentioned above.

Mind Crush is more of a liability to me so far, although it is useful when played at a correct time. People always see it as "very profitable" when Mind Crush is used on a key card to stop opponent's flow, e.g. Agent-Venus (again). But they don't see it as a liability when it is not used.

I know people will talk about the "pro level" of using Mind Crush, namely "blind call". It is when opponent does not review any of his cards in hand, and you guess that he has a certain card because of the way he plays. Again, one doesn't gain concrete advantage even if he named a correct card. Other times, people tend to name a card that he may "die" from if opponent has it. Probably it is that one dead card you have that leads to the situation whereby you have to do or die. Then why play Mind Crush to begin with if it's that unstable. I still remember a game that was played years ago, I had Dark Armed Dragon and another dark monster in hand. There were 2 dark monsters in grave, and I had a set Mind Crush. I would certainly lose the game if I don't summon my Dark Armed Dragon on that turn. In the end, I used Mind Crush and named Blue Eyes White Dragon. Hopefully my dark monster is discarded, so that I can summon my Dark Armed Dragon. It could be less risky if Mind Crush was another stable trap like Dimensional Prison.

Mind Crush is still strong in some decks. Most Dark World decks run two Mind Crush because of Drag to the Grave, and it usually wins the game when they're played together. They seal off the chance of opponent making a come back.

With these being said, Mind Crush is still decent. But it is certainly not as good as many assume it to be. Maybe it is just my favoritism over stability in deck building. The one thing that I like about it is that it can chain to many cards. That is the time when Mind Crush does the most damage. Other than that it is a liability.

I know many will disagree with me. I'm ready for critics.

Discuss.

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Edit:

Apparently, the ruling has been revised recently.

It seems like one has to reveal his hand like Trap Dustshoot if the number of the named card in hand isn't clear. Mind Crush is more useful than it was. The ability to look at the opponent's hand is tempting, and it slightly bends my main argument in this post. "It does not generate concrete advantage after a one for one card trade." The trade off for the risk of it being a liability is that one may look at opponent's hand.

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Source: https://duellikeanidol.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/is-mind-crush-overrated/

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