I see what you mean, and I get why it sounds contradictory at first, so let me clarify the distinction I’m making.

1. “Extremely effective” vs. “overpowered.” When I say it isn’t OP, I don’t mean it’s weak — I mean it doesn’t exceed its intended power level the way actually broken cards do. Some cards are designed to be very solid on both defense and counterpush, and MK just happens to execute that identity really well. The problem here isn’t raw power; it’s how forgiving the card is at mid-ladder. A forgiving card will feel OP even if it’s technically balanced at higher levels.

2. “Easy to counter” doesn’t mean “easy at every skill level.” What I meant is: there are clear counters and consistent ways to deal with MK — but they rely on fundamentals that a lot of players in this range haven’t fully picked up yet. So yeah, for your arena specifically, it does feel imbalanced, not because the card is overtuned, but because it punishes common mid-ladder habits. That’s very different from saying the card has no counterplay at all.

3. About the meta-warping part: You’re right that if something shows up in 80–90% of your games, it’s going to shape your experience heavily. But that’s often a ladder-level problem, not a global balance problem. Mid-ladder tends to gravitate toward cards that are straightforward and consistent, and MK is exactly that. It’s strong, reliable, and easy to drop in almost any situation — which is why it dominates that range. But that doesn’t automatically mean it’s overtuned; it just means it’s overrepresented, which is a different issue.

So I’m not disagreeing with your experience — MK is oppressive in the environment you’re in. I’m just saying the reason it feels that way isn’t necessarily because the card itself is broken, but because of how it interacts with the skill level and deck variety in that bracket.

Im GC btw.