To those saying that Twin was nearly unbeatable or didn't have any weaknesses, keep telling yourself that. To preface this, I will say that I am glad for the changes that have happened in Modern recently and I wouldn't have Wizards take back the Twin ban, the Eye of Ugin ban, or the unbans of Vision and Sword. These were good changes. I played a deck that won around 35% against Twin. But, if I wanted to play a deck that beat Twin, I could have, very easily I might add.
Twin did stifle a lot of "rogue" decks, similar to how Jund stifles any deck trying to emulate Jund. They will just end up being a worse version of Jund. Some people don't like this stifling of odd rogue decks. Others are happy not to see some Dredge, Rally, Taking Turns, etc. not be played often enough (because Tier 1 decks, not just Twin keep them down). There is no clear cut preference for every player.
I don't think Twin should come back any time soon, if at all. But I can't just sit here and listen to person after person say how Twin had "no weaknesses." I play a hell of a lot. The players that are above me in PW points in CA don't play Modern exclusively like I do. They play Standard (during this Standard PPTQ season) and Limited. If you don't want to have a severe problem with Twin, you don't have to. Not to mention, the percentages that I saw personally were around 12%, so you could also hope to dodge it. Jund is a deck that beat it. You can't tell me that Jund had no chance of beating other decks. If you honestly believe that you will face 1 in 4 Twin in a Comp REL tournament, then you should be on Jund. (now the price barrier is another story altogether, but if you're willing to play Comp REL and expect to do well, you should be on the "best" deck possible)
*Now if someone wants to argue that banning Twin set a new standard (that hasn't been defined yet), as opposed to having the removal by turn 3 and the ability to grind with them, then I won't argue against that. But Twin was far from an unbeatable deck.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do. If you want to play twin play Sneak and show in legacy it's similar. The only card I would want on the ban list is choke. It is a narrow hatecard that punishes people for just playing magic with the color blue in their deck. No good magic is promoted by the card's existence.
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I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do.
Because people who don't like Twin want to assign all of modern's problems to Twin and Twin alone, painting the picture that it was an unbeatable, unavoidable menace that ruined modern. They want to credit the current modern environment to the Twin ban. It's the villain that's easy to point to and say "it's that deck's fault! And removing it made things better!" When in reality, the format we have now is due to about a dozen individual factors including several key cards being banned, unbanned, or newly printed. I thought we just spent the last several pages discussing this? The correlating relationship has absolutely nothing to support cause and effect, specifically for Twin. Not to mention all the quotes from last year praising Modern for being the best, healthiest, and most diverse it had ever been to that point before.
I have no issue moving on from this topic (and basically did after the pervious discussion), but for goodness sake, the combination of revisionist history and completely unsupported statements is just a bit much. If you want to rub salt in the wounds, fine, but several people are contradicting their own damn words.
Things are good now*. The reason for things being good come from a large variety of contributing factors. But if we want to pick a single thing to represent the change for the better, banning Eye of Ugin had a hell of a lot more impact than banning Twin did in "improving the format."
*Good in the sense that linear strategies are ironically still your best competitive option, but other options are at least viable.
I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do.
Because people who don't like Twin want to assign all of modern's problems to Twin and Twin alone, painting the picture that it was an unbeatable, unavoidable menace that ruined modern. They want to credit the current modern environment to the Twin ban. It's the villain that's easy to point to and say "it's that deck's fault! And removing it made things better!" When in reality, the format we have now is due to about a dozen individual factors including several key cards being banned, unbanned, or newly printed. I thought we just spent the last several pages discussing this? The correlating relationship has absolutely nothing to support cause and effect, specifically for Twin. Not to mention all the quotes from last year praising Modern for being the best, healthiest, and most diverse it had ever been to that point before.
I have no issue moving on from this topic (and basically did after the pervious discussion), but for goodness sake, the combination of revisionist history and completely unsupported statements is just a bit much. If you want to rub salt in the wounds, fine, but several people are contradicting their own damn words.
Things are good now*. The reason for things being good come from a large variety of contributing factors. But if we want to pick a single thing to represent the change for the better, banning Eye of Ugin had a hell of a lot more impact than banning Twin did in "improving the format."
*Good in the sense that linear strategies are ironically still your best competitive option, but other options are at least viable.
Many of the strategies that are great now are great because twin isn't around and I don't know how you can debate that. 4 drop planeswalkers weren't playable because of twin, Kiki-chord was hard to play because of twin (not much removal), Jeskai control/grixis would just be twin decks, ancestral wouldn't be legal which promotes good magic, etc. I don't know why twin players are in so much denial about this. The deck isn't coming back and it's time to move on.
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I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do. If you want to play twin play Sneak and show in legacy it's similar. The only card I would want on the ban list is choke. It is a narrow hatecard that punishes people for just playing magic with the color blue in their deck. No good magic is promoted by the card's existence.
Lol, Choke is annoying, but the decks it affects can usually play around it. Would be worse for them if everyone ran Boil.
I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do. If you want to play twin play Sneak and show in legacy it's similar. The only card I would want on the ban list is choke. It is a narrow hatecard that punishes people for just playing magic with the color blue in their deck. No good magic is promoted by the card's existence.
Lol, Choke is annoying, but the decks it affects can usually play around it. Would be worse for them if everyone ran Boil.
Choke flat out wins games by itself and it encourages players fetching for non island cards early on so they don't get blown out. Seeing a basic forest makes me want to fetch for something else just because of the threat of the card. That is the definition of unhealthy magic the gathering.
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On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do.
Because people who don't like Twin want to assign all of modern's problems to Twin and Twin alone, painting the picture that it was an unbeatable, unavoidable menace that ruined modern. They want to credit the current modern environment to the Twin ban. It's the villain that's easy to point to and say "it's that deck's fault! And removing it made things better!" When in reality, the format we have now is due to about a dozen individual factors including several key cards being banned, unbanned, or newly printed. I thought we just spent the last several pages discussing this? The correlating relationship has absolutely nothing to support cause and effect, specifically for Twin. Not to mention all the quotes from last year praising Modern for being the best, healthiest, and most diverse it had ever been to that point before.
I have no issue moving on from this topic (and basically did after the pervious discussion), but for goodness sake, the combination of revisionist history and completely unsupported statements is just a bit much. If you want to rub salt in the wounds, fine, but several people are contradicting their own damn words.
Things are good now*. The reason for things being good come from a large variety of contributing factors. But if we want to pick a single thing to represent the change for the better, banning Eye of Ugin had a hell of a lot more impact than banning Twin did in "improving the format."
*Good in the sense that linear strategies are ironically still your best competitive option, but other options are at least viable.
You're kidding right? I've seen you bring up the Twin ban more than any other person in this thread by a fantastically large margin and no one on this board has been more tenacious than you when it comes to either bringing it up or defending it (not saying this is negative - I actually feels it's pretty admirable to be so devoted to something you loved, kudos).
Twin was completely benign and had bad matchups all over the board and had a horrible metashare when talking to ex-twin players. Twin was a boogeyman and won everything and had a ridiculously high metashare when talking to ban proponents. The reality is that both sides are right - the deck was complicated, and existed in many of modern's grey areas (it's actual deck classification, how it's shares were defined, which numbers you looked at could make it look better or worse, it's status as a police deck, etc. etc. etc.).
People are always going to selectively pick out stats and figures that support their arguments and their arguments alone. Could Twin be interpreted as a problem? Yep. Could it be interpreted as a necessary evil? Yep. Could it be interpreted as weak or strong? Absolutely. But we all need to come to the realization that we will never stop talking about Twin. Ever. No deck has been more polarizing and we'll deal with the ramifications of their decision for a long long time.
First Moon then Choke. If you don't want to play with powerful cards that aren't even warping the format (of, in the case of Moon and Choke, not even played in top-tier decks), then Modern probably isn't the right format for you. This format is PACKED with cards that influence how you have to play and what you are playing in the first place. Unless those cards are causing format problems, not just problems for your personal deck, then they aren't really topics for this thread. Even something like Stirrings is a better topic, and we are a long way from discussing that seriously.
Honest to goodness I'd give some thought to locking this thread down until there's something meaningful to talk about. There is literally nothing bannable in modern right now based on the criteria wizards has set down, and nothing on the banlist that's reasonable to discuss unbanning that hasn't been done to death.
Many of the strategies that are great now are great because twin isn't around and I don't know how you can debate that.
Because I don't see a large change in viable strategies now vs viable strategies last Fall. Using Modernnexus as a basis, we have the following: T1/T2 decks November 2015: Affinity, Burn, Jund, RG Tron, UR Twin, Bloom, Merfolk, Infect, Grixis Twin, Abzan, Scapeshift, Abzan Company, Naya Company, Grixis Control, Grixis Midrange, Living End, Temur Twin, GR Zoo, Bogles, Ad Nauseam, Knightfall, Elves. T1/T2 decks April/May 2016: Affinity, Burn, Jund, RG Tron, Abzan Company, Infect, Scapeshift, Jeskai Nahiri, Merfolk, Titan Shift, Death & Taxes, Kiki Chord, Abzan, Grixis Control, Grixis Midrange, Living End, GR Zoo, Ad Nauseam, Elves, Eldrazi.
So that was 22 T1/T2 decks November of 2015 and 20 T1/T2 decks for April and May of 2016, for an overall reduction of 2 T1/T2 decks. The remaining unbanned decks either stayed good, or were simply replaced by something else. And ALL of the incoming replacements were due to new printings of new cards, not bannings or unbannings.
4 drop planeswalkers weren't playable because of twin
Which ones are being played now that weren't seeing play? Nahiri? The one that wasn't printed yet? There was already an exhaustive discussion on this ludicrous notion that 4 drops were unplayable.
Kiki-chord was hard to play because of twin (not much removal)
Kiki Chord got significantly better with the printing of Nahiri. But even before that, Jeff Hoogland had been playing it successfully for quite some time.
Jeskai control/grixis would just be twin decks
This contradicts the rise of Grixis decks last year. Also non-Twin UR decks like Grixis and Jeskai have FANTASTIC matchups against Twin.
ancestral wouldn't be legal which promotes good magic, etc.
Maybe, maybe not. Also, AV isn't promoting good magic, since the best way to beat AV is to play a fast linear strategy.
I don't know why twin players are in so much denial about this. The deck isn't coming back and it's time to move on.
Because statements being made do not match up with history or reality.
Honestly, I don't even want to argue this anymore. I just get sick of seeing blatantly false or misleading information. Yes, I loved Twin, but I love arguing things even more (family always told me to be a lawyer, but math teacher will have to do). Niall hit the nail on the head that it's a more complex matter which has a complex series of answers. Nothing bothered me more than seeing woefully ignorant statements like "the format is good now because Twin is gone," while completely ignoring the dozens of other changes that had happened over the past 6 months that are completely independent of Twin.
I have strong opinions on certain things (shocking, I know). But I try to base all my opinions on as much information and evidence as I can gather, and I am always open to being disproved. If I am met with astouding evidence and convincing arguments, I will happily accept defeat and change my mind. But that hasn't happened with Twin until the recent Stoddard article. I was completely ready to never talk of this again after that piece because it was an acknowledgement from Wizards that it was a difficult decision that pissed off a lot of people and may or may not have needed to be made. That's all I could ask for; at least a slight show of remorse for the joke of an explanation we got with the ban announcement. But then this thread lights up again with the same weak ex-post-facto arguments that make no sense and hold no ground. So here I am. Blah blah blah. Cheers all! I really don't want to be making these same arguments again for some time.
was it all BS? absolutely, meta is less linear than ever
What data do you have that supports this?
Doing some simple MS Excel calculations, I came up with the last six months before the ban and compared them to this past month, as represented by estimated numbers of linear decks.
Data was taking overall combined overall metashare percentage for Tier 1 and 2 decks classified as "linear", and adding an estimated value for remaining decks.
For example, if the overall percent of T1/T2 decks was 80% and 50% of those decks are linear, then that 50% is applied to the remaining unclassified 20% for an equation of P(estimated) = P(linear) + (P(linear)*(100-P(total)).
So in this example, there would be an estimated 60% linear strategies.
July '15: 47.1%
August '15: 51.9%
September '15: 53.4%
October '15: 55.2%
November '15: 56.1%
December '15: 49.9%
April '16: 53.6%
The data probably isn't perfect, but it was consistent as I could make it between both its source and its classifications. It tells us that about half the meta is linear, which is not a news story in of itself. But what is interesting is the current amount estimated of linear strategies (53.6%) is actually slightly less than than the average of the last six months of 2015 (52.3%). Even more interesting is that two of the previous were under 50%. And this is exactly why statements like this irk me; especially as a math teaching credential student. I don't just disagree with them, they are factually and numerically incorrect.
BTW, Modernnexus has a lovely simplicity when it comes to displaying their data in tables and it copies/pastes wonderfully into Excel.
I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do.
Because people who don't like Twin want to assign all of modern's problems to Twin and Twin alone, painting the picture that it was an unbeatable, unavoidable menace that ruined modern. They want to credit the current modern environment to the Twin ban. It's the villain that's easy to point to and say "it's that deck's fault! And removing it made things better!" When in reality, the format we have now is due to about a dozen individual factors including several key cards being banned, unbanned, or newly printed. I thought we just spent the last several pages discussing this? The correlating relationship has absolutely nothing to support cause and effect, specifically for Twin. Not to mention all the quotes from last year praising Modern for being the best, healthiest, and most diverse it had ever been to that point before.
I have no issue moving on from this topic (and basically did after the pervious discussion), but for goodness sake, the combination of revisionist history and completely unsupported statements is just a bit much. If you want to rub salt in the wounds, fine, but several people are contradicting their own damn words.
Things are good now*. The reason for things being good come from a large variety of contributing factors. But if we want to pick a single thing to represent the change for the better, banning Eye of Ugin had a hell of a lot more impact than banning Twin did in "improving the format."
*Good in the sense that linear strategies are ironically still your best competitive option, but other options are at least viable.
Twin ban would have a bigger impact than the eye ban if the new eldrazi were never printed. If we skip over eldraxi winter the biggest reason the format is the way it is due to the twin bsn. No I am not a twin hater. Honestly twin was probably my favorite magic deck of all the formats I have ever played but I always frlt it was better than everything else and did put a lot of restrictions on what is playable. Twin pretty much made it a rule to run instant dpeed removal and as few 4 drops snd above as possible. Sure 4 drops existed before but not as 4 ofs unless it was siege rhino and thst was just because that card is overrated and was actually bad. The unbans did not change much and many of the new printings eould not see play if twin was lrgal.
Many of the strategies that are great now are great because twin isn't around and I don't know how you can debate that.
Because I don't see a large change in viable strategies now vs viable strategies last Fall. Using Modernnexus as a basis, we have the following: T1/T2 decks November 2015: Affinity, Burn, Jund, RG Tron, UR Twin, Bloom, Merfolk, Infect, Grixis Twin, Abzan, Scapeshift, Abzan Company, Naya Company, Grixis Control, Grixis Midrange, Living End, Temur Twin, GR Zoo, Bogles, Ad Nauseam, Knightfall, Elves. T1/T2 decks April/May 2016: Affinity, Burn, Jund, RG Tron, Abzan Company, Infect, Scapeshift, Jeskai Nahiri, Merfolk, Titan Shift, Death & Taxes, Kiki Chord, Abzan, Grixis Control, Grixis Midrange, Living End, GR Zoo, Ad Nauseam, Elves, Eldrazi.
So that was 22 T1/T2 decks November of 2015 and 20 T1/T2 decks for April and May of 2016, for an overall reduction of 2 T1/T2 decks. The remaining unbanned decks either stayed good, or were simply replaced by something else. And ALL of the incoming replacements were due to new printings of new cards, not bannings or unbannings.
4 drop planeswalkers weren't playable because of twin
Which ones are being played now that weren't seeing play? Nahiri? The one that wasn't printed yet? There was already an exhaustive discussion on this ludicrous notion that 4 drops were unplayable.
Kiki-chord was hard to play because of twin (not much removal)
Kiki Chord got significantly better with the printing of Nahiri. But even before that, Jeff Hoogland had been playing it successfully for quite some time.
Jeskai control/grixis would just be twin decks
This contradicts the rise of Grixis decks last year. Also non-Twin UR decks like Grixis and Jeskai have FANTASTIC matchups against Twin.
ancestral wouldn't be legal which promotes good magic, etc.
Maybe, maybe not. Also, AV isn't promoting good magic, since the best way to beat AV is to play a fast linear strategy.
I don't know why twin players are in so much denial about this. The deck isn't coming back and it's time to move on.
Because statements being made do not match up with history or reality.
Honestly, I don't even want to argue this anymore. I just get sick of seeing blatantly false or misleading information. Yes, I loved Twin, but I love arguing things even more (family always told me to be a lawyer, but math teacher will have to do). Niall hit the nail on the head that it's a more complex matter which has a complex series of answers. Nothing bothered me more than seeing woefully ignorant statements like "the format is good now because Twin is gone," while completely ignoring the dozens of other changes that had happened over the past 6 months that are completely independent of Twin.
I have strong opinions on certain things (shocking, I know). But I try to base all my opinions on as much information and evidence as I can gather, and I am always open to being disproved. If I am met with astouding evidence and convincing arguments, I will happily accept defeat and change my mind. But that hasn't happened with Twin until the recent Stoddard article. I was completely ready to never talk of this again after that piece because it was an acknowledgement from Wizards that it was a difficult decision that pissed off a lot of people and may or may not have needed to be made. That's all I could ask for; at least a slight show of remorse for the joke of an explanation we got with the ban announcement. But then this thread lights up again with the same weak ex-post-facto arguments that make no sense and hold no ground. So here I am. Blah blah blah. Cheers all! I really don't want to be making these same arguments again for some time.
Grixis became grixis twin last year and grixis began to fade away after jace got printed and jeskai was only playable as a twin deck, Jeskai won an GP so I don't know how you can claim that control was better last year (twin isn't a control deck), the game in general is more interactive because of the bannings of bloom/twin and that's not arguable, Nahiri wouldn't be a playable card if twin was around, Kiki-chord didn't have a great twin matchup hence why hoogland didn't place well until it left, Ancestral promotes great magic as it rewards grindy decks for surviving aggro decks and it gives them a good fight against jund, etc. I don't know how to say this to you but twin isn't NEVER coming off of the ban list so there is really no point in arguing about it. Unbanning twin does nothing positive for the meta but shrink meta shares. Wizards just released an article about how the meta is getting healthier and I agree with them. This has been the best point in modern history to build and play decks. I would like the game to move forward and gives us more interactive cards/decks to play instead of a deck that suppresses them. But if you want to keep discussing twin even though it has a modern grave, go right ahead.
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First Moon then Choke. If you don't want to play with powerful cards that aren't even warping the format (of, in the case of Moon and Choke, not even played in top-tier decks), then Modern probably isn't the right format for you. This format is PACKED with cards that influence how you have to play and what you are playing in the first place. Unless those cards are causing format problems, not just problems for your personal deck, then they aren't really topics for this thread. Even something like Stirrings is a better topic, and we are a long way from discussing that seriously.
Blood moon is different as the card affects both players on the field. To play blood moon correctly your deck has to make sacrifices. Choke offers none of these sacrifices and makes decks sequence worse. But w/e lets keep on complaining about twin since the card is clearly coming off of the banlist next unban.
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On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
First Moon then Choke. If you don't want to play with powerful cards that aren't even warping the format (of, in the case of Moon and Choke, not even played in top-tier decks), then Modern probably isn't the right format for you. This format is PACKED with cards that influence how you have to play and what you are playing in the first place. Unless those cards are causing format problems, not just problems for your personal deck, then they aren't really topics for this thread. Even something like Stirrings is a better topic, and we are a long way from discussing that seriously.
Blood moon is different as the card affects both players on the field. To play blood moon correctly your deck has to make sacrifices. Choke offers none of these sacrifices and makes decks sequence worse. But w/e lets keep on complaining about twin since the card is clearly coming off of the banlist next unban.
Choke's also a dead card in any non-blue matchup and even there most 2 and 3 color blue decks pack a decent number of checklands or fastlands or filters. The card is barely worth a SB slot. I can't fathom how it's at all ban worthy.
First Moon then Choke. If you don't want to play with powerful cards that aren't even warping the format (of, in the case of Moon and Choke, not even played in top-tier decks), then Modern probably isn't the right format for you. This format is PACKED with cards that influence how you have to play and what you are playing in the first place. Unless those cards are causing format problems, not just problems for your personal deck, then they aren't really topics for this thread. Even something like Stirrings is a better topic, and we are a long way from discussing that seriously.
Blood moon is different as the card affects both players on the field. To play blood moon correctly your deck has to make sacrifices. Choke offers none of these sacrifices and makes decks sequence worse. But w/e lets keep on complaining about twin since the card is clearly coming off of the banlist next unban.
Choke's also a dead card in any non-blue matchup and even there most 2 and 3 color blue decks pack a decent number of checklands or fastlands or filters. The card is barely worth a SB slot. I can't fathom how it's at all ban worthy.
It isn't ban worthy - people just have nothing better to talk about.
My guess is that they have on radar ensnaring bridge, goryos vengeance and mox opal but they re nowhere near to be banned and nothing will be banned for the three next announcements to come.
The blood moon and choke suggestion are hilarious. Nothing to talk about here.
I think Ensnaring Bridge and Goryo's Vengeance are just as hilarious as Blood Moon and Choke. Mox Opal is the only card I can think of that would be on their radar because Affinity is almost always tier 1. There isn't a single card in the format that should be banned on its own merits, like DRS or Treasure Cruise. No deck is top tier and consistently winning before turn 4. So that only leaves us with a diversity ban. No deck has the shares right now to support one, but Affinity is the last deck standing that used to define the Modern format. It used to be Jund, Affinity, Twin, and Pod that you would explain to any new comer when describing the format. Jund is obviously still around and doing very well, but it's eaten 2 (some could say 3 because of punishing fire) bans. Affinity is the only one that hasn't eaten any bans (save artifact lands, which were never legal). Not that it should, but Mox Opal is the only I can see being on a "watch list."
Id be willing to bet the cards they have their eyes on are coco, opal, and inkmoth nexus, you know, cards from decks that have actually have been putting up results? Two of which are arguably a little too fast? Two of which are decks that have been t2/t1 since moderns inception and faded bans the entire time?
Not saying i agree with any of these bans, but why would they be looking at cards from decks less than .5% of the meta? We get it, you hate ensnaring bridge. Move along please
Ensnaring Bridge is also really easy to hate on. Abrupt Decay, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress, Thoughtseize, Natural State, Nature's Claim, Kolaghan's Command, etc etc etc. Heck Rule of Law/Eidolon of Rhetoric even work pretty well cause you can drastically stall them dumping their hand.
tbh Choke is not even a good card now with Nahiri in Jeskai and Twin gone, what deck will you hose with it? and how reliable is that?
Agreed and I was never fan of it, even before Nahiri. It's not as good as it seems on the paper (by my experiences at least).
I agree. You really only want it if you are playing a Green deck that has a poor matchup against decks that have a lot of Islands, which isn't as common as one would think. There are so many other ways to beat Blue decks that also help with other matchups that I don't know why you would limit yourself to a card like Choke. Now in Legacy where Blue is pretty much a given to be the best color, it is sometimes necessary.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Id be willing to bet the cards they have their eyes on are coco, opal, and inkmoth nexus, you know, cards from decks that have actually have been putting up results? Two of which are arguably a little too fast? Two of which are decks that have been t2/t1 since moderns inception and faded bans the entire time?
Not saying i agree with any of these bans, but why would they be looking at cards from decks less than .5% of the meta? We get it, you hate ensnaring bridge. Move along please
I can't imagine they're looking at CoCo, but there MIGHT be an argument for the other two. MIGHT.
was it all BS? absolutely, meta is less linear than ever
What data do you have that supports this?
Doing some simple MS Excel calculations, I came up with the last six months before the ban and compared them to this past month, as represented by estimated numbers of linear decks.
Data was taking overall combined overall metashare percentage for Tier 1 and 2 decks classified as "linear", and adding an estimated value for remaining decks.
For example, if the overall percent of T1/T2 decks was 80% and 50% of those decks are linear, then that 50% is applied to the remaining unclassified 20% for an equation of P(estimated) = P(linear) + (P(linear)*(100-P(total)).
So in this example, there would be an estimated 60% linear strategies.
July '15: 47.1%
August '15: 51.9%
September '15: 53.4%
October '15: 55.2%
November '15: 56.1%
December '15: 49.9%
April '16: 53.6%
The data probably isn't perfect, but it was consistent as I could make it between both its source and its classifications. It tells us that about half the meta is linear, which is not a news story in of itself. But what is interesting is the current amount estimated of linear strategies (53.6%) is actually slightly less than than the average of the last six months of 2015 (52.3%). Even more interesting is that two of the previous were under 50%. And this is exactly why statements like this irk me; especially as a math teaching credential student. I don't just disagree with them, they are factually and numerically incorrect.
BTW, Modernnexus has a lovely simplicity when it comes to displaying their data in tables and it copies/pastes wonderfully into Excel.
very true and well said. it seems by your stats here that twin existing in modern didnt have much impact on the "policing" aspect it was said to be doing.
and modern didnt seem to change much from twin leaving either ( except for a lower amount of snapcaster decks overall)
Id be willing to bet the cards they have their eyes on are coco, opal, and inkmoth nexus, you know, cards from decks that have actually have been putting up results? Two of which are arguably a little too fast? Two of which are decks that have been t2/t1 since moderns inception and faded bans the entire time?
Not saying i agree with any of these bans, but why would they be looking at cards from decks less than .5% of the meta? We get it, you hate ensnaring bridge. Move along please
For the second time, you are totally wrong. It's becoming a thing for you . You have to be more open minded to things and not assuming them just because.
Truth is I want to build Lantern Control on paper, because I actually like the deck and I don't have a problem with the card Ensnaring Bridge. Justification on the bridge ban:
1. @rolandthree Visions will be up for discussion once we see how the post-Twin world plays out. Sword just makes Lantern more obnoxious, no?
2. Sword of the Meek might enable some slower combo decks, perhaps of the combo-control variety. It could be used as an alternate win condition in Lantern Control, which is powerful when unexpected but not currently a large part of the metagame.
Those two posts show that they are discussing the Lantern deck at least, but they probably are saying "it's 0.5% of the metagame, if it goes up to 10% we will think about it again". Of course I don't think this is happening, just saying that they monitor the card.
But the third time bfrie was wrong(they were a lot of them actually) is that I think Mox Opal and Goryo's Vengeance are the two cards that are really being monitored. At least that's my opinion. But to clear the water, NOTHING is getting banned for maybe a year from now. I am super adamant on this.
Nothing is getting banned, neither should be. I dismiss all the ban suggestions.
Edit: Added: Inkmoth Nexus, there might be an argument for.
Collected Company WHAT? Why do you think they monitor the card Collected Company? Why do you think they would ban such a card? Because it's a potential 2 for 1 with severe constrictions?
Opal is the card to ban if Affinity is ever a problem (it's not now). SSG is not a fair Magic card and largely serves to enable broken pre-T4 plays, and I'm an Ad Nauseam player who can admit that. Just because Ad Nauseam doesn't break SSG, doesn't mean the card isn't broken. Finally, Become Immense is the clear card to ban to nerf Infect if it's ever a problem. Delve cards are busted and Infect was significantly less powerful before Immense was printed.
I am still predicting that we get through next year's April banlist update without any new bans in Modern, these cards included.
I don't know why this discussion is only about twin. The metagame is significantly more interactive right now and there are more legal decks. The ban accomplished what it was set out to do. If you want to play twin play Sneak and show in legacy it's similar. The only card I would want on the ban list is choke. It is a narrow hatecard that punishes people for just playing magic with the color blue in their deck. No good magic is promoted by the card's existence.
Lol, Choke is annoying, but the decks it affects can usually play around it. Would be worse for them if everyone ran Boil.
Choke flat out wins games by itself and it encourages players fetching for non island cards early on so they don't get blown out. Seeing a basic forest makes me want to fetch for something else just because of the threat of the card. That is the definition of unhealthy magic the gathering.
How is that unhealthy? You perceive a potential threat, and play around it. Mana bases are just another aspect of the game that can be targeted, nothing sacred about them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
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Twin did stifle a lot of "rogue" decks, similar to how Jund stifles any deck trying to emulate Jund. They will just end up being a worse version of Jund. Some people don't like this stifling of odd rogue decks. Others are happy not to see some Dredge, Rally, Taking Turns, etc. not be played often enough (because Tier 1 decks, not just Twin keep them down). There is no clear cut preference for every player.
I don't think Twin should come back any time soon, if at all. But I can't just sit here and listen to person after person say how Twin had "no weaknesses." I play a hell of a lot. The players that are above me in PW points in CA don't play Modern exclusively like I do. They play Standard (during this Standard PPTQ season) and Limited. If you don't want to have a severe problem with Twin, you don't have to. Not to mention, the percentages that I saw personally were around 12%, so you could also hope to dodge it. Jund is a deck that beat it. You can't tell me that Jund had no chance of beating other decks. If you honestly believe that you will face 1 in 4 Twin in a Comp REL tournament, then you should be on Jund. (now the price barrier is another story altogether, but if you're willing to play Comp REL and expect to do well, you should be on the "best" deck possible)
*Now if someone wants to argue that banning Twin set a new standard (that hasn't been defined yet), as opposed to having the removal by turn 3 and the ability to grind with them, then I won't argue against that. But Twin was far from an unbeatable deck.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Because people who don't like Twin want to assign all of modern's problems to Twin and Twin alone, painting the picture that it was an unbeatable, unavoidable menace that ruined modern. They want to credit the current modern environment to the Twin ban. It's the villain that's easy to point to and say "it's that deck's fault! And removing it made things better!" When in reality, the format we have now is due to about a dozen individual factors including several key cards being banned, unbanned, or newly printed. I thought we just spent the last several pages discussing this? The correlating relationship has absolutely nothing to support cause and effect, specifically for Twin. Not to mention all the quotes from last year praising Modern for being the best, healthiest, and most diverse it had ever been to that point before.
I have no issue moving on from this topic (and basically did after the pervious discussion), but for goodness sake, the combination of revisionist history and completely unsupported statements is just a bit much. If you want to rub salt in the wounds, fine, but several people are contradicting their own damn words.
Things are good now*. The reason for things being good come from a large variety of contributing factors. But if we want to pick a single thing to represent the change for the better, banning Eye of Ugin had a hell of a lot more impact than banning Twin did in "improving the format."
*Good in the sense that linear strategies are ironically still your best competitive option, but other options are at least viable.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Many of the strategies that are great now are great because twin isn't around and I don't know how you can debate that. 4 drop planeswalkers weren't playable because of twin, Kiki-chord was hard to play because of twin (not much removal), Jeskai control/grixis would just be twin decks, ancestral wouldn't be legal which promotes good magic, etc. I don't know why twin players are in so much denial about this. The deck isn't coming back and it's time to move on.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Lol, Choke is annoying, but the decks it affects can usually play around it. Would be worse for them if everyone ran Boil.
Choke flat out wins games by itself and it encourages players fetching for non island cards early on so they don't get blown out. Seeing a basic forest makes me want to fetch for something else just because of the threat of the card. That is the definition of unhealthy magic the gathering.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
You're kidding right? I've seen you bring up the Twin ban more than any other person in this thread by a fantastically large margin and no one on this board has been more tenacious than you when it comes to either bringing it up or defending it (not saying this is negative - I actually feels it's pretty admirable to be so devoted to something you loved, kudos).
Twin was completely benign and had bad matchups all over the board and had a horrible metashare when talking to ex-twin players. Twin was a boogeyman and won everything and had a ridiculously high metashare when talking to ban proponents. The reality is that both sides are right - the deck was complicated, and existed in many of modern's grey areas (it's actual deck classification, how it's shares were defined, which numbers you looked at could make it look better or worse, it's status as a police deck, etc. etc. etc.).
People are always going to selectively pick out stats and figures that support their arguments and their arguments alone. Could Twin be interpreted as a problem? Yep. Could it be interpreted as a necessary evil? Yep. Could it be interpreted as weak or strong? Absolutely. But we all need to come to the realization that we will never stop talking about Twin. Ever. No deck has been more polarizing and we'll deal with the ramifications of their decision for a long long time.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Because I don't see a large change in viable strategies now vs viable strategies last Fall. Using Modernnexus as a basis, we have the following:
T1/T2 decks November 2015: Affinity, Burn, Jund, RG Tron, UR Twin, Bloom, Merfolk, Infect, Grixis Twin, Abzan, Scapeshift, Abzan Company, Naya Company, Grixis Control, Grixis Midrange, Living End, Temur Twin, GR Zoo, Bogles, Ad Nauseam, Knightfall, Elves.
T1/T2 decks April/May 2016: Affinity, Burn, Jund, RG Tron, Abzan Company, Infect, Scapeshift, Jeskai Nahiri, Merfolk, Titan Shift, Death & Taxes, Kiki Chord, Abzan, Grixis Control, Grixis Midrange, Living End, GR Zoo, Ad Nauseam, Elves, Eldrazi.
So that was 22 T1/T2 decks November of 2015 and 20 T1/T2 decks for April and May of 2016, for an overall reduction of 2 T1/T2 decks. The remaining unbanned decks either stayed good, or were simply replaced by something else. And ALL of the incoming replacements were due to new printings of new cards, not bannings or unbannings.
Which ones are being played now that weren't seeing play? Nahiri? The one that wasn't printed yet? There was already an exhaustive discussion on this ludicrous notion that 4 drops were unplayable.
Kiki Chord got significantly better with the printing of Nahiri. But even before that, Jeff Hoogland had been playing it successfully for quite some time.
This contradicts the rise of Grixis decks last year. Also non-Twin UR decks like Grixis and Jeskai have FANTASTIC matchups against Twin.
Maybe, maybe not. Also, AV isn't promoting good magic, since the best way to beat AV is to play a fast linear strategy.
Because statements being made do not match up with history or reality.
Honestly, I don't even want to argue this anymore. I just get sick of seeing blatantly false or misleading information. Yes, I loved Twin, but I love arguing things even more (family always told me to be a lawyer, but math teacher will have to do). Niall hit the nail on the head that it's a more complex matter which has a complex series of answers. Nothing bothered me more than seeing woefully ignorant statements like "the format is good now because Twin is gone," while completely ignoring the dozens of other changes that had happened over the past 6 months that are completely independent of Twin.
I have strong opinions on certain things (shocking, I know). But I try to base all my opinions on as much information and evidence as I can gather, and I am always open to being disproved. If I am met with astouding evidence and convincing arguments, I will happily accept defeat and change my mind. But that hasn't happened with Twin until the recent Stoddard article. I was completely ready to never talk of this again after that piece because it was an acknowledgement from Wizards that it was a difficult decision that pissed off a lot of people and may or may not have needed to be made. That's all I could ask for; at least a slight show of remorse for the joke of an explanation we got with the ban announcement. But then this thread lights up again with the same weak ex-post-facto arguments that make no sense and hold no ground. So here I am.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
What data do you have that supports this?
Doing some simple MS Excel calculations, I came up with the last six months before the ban and compared them to this past month, as represented by estimated numbers of linear decks.
Data was taking overall combined overall metashare percentage for Tier 1 and 2 decks classified as "linear", and adding an estimated value for remaining decks.
For example, if the overall percent of T1/T2 decks was 80% and 50% of those decks are linear, then that 50% is applied to the remaining unclassified 20% for an equation of P(estimated) = P(linear) + (P(linear)*(100-P(total)).
So in this example, there would be an estimated 60% linear strategies.
July '15: 47.1%
August '15: 51.9%
September '15: 53.4%
October '15: 55.2%
November '15: 56.1%
December '15: 49.9%
April '16: 53.6%
The data probably isn't perfect, but it was consistent as I could make it between both its source and its classifications. It tells us that about half the meta is linear, which is not a news story in of itself. But what is interesting is the current amount estimated of linear strategies (53.6%) is actually slightly less than than the average of the last six months of 2015 (52.3%). Even more interesting is that two of the previous were under 50%. And this is exactly why statements like this irk me; especially as a math teaching credential student. I don't just disagree with them, they are factually and numerically incorrect.
BTW, Modernnexus has a lovely simplicity when it comes to displaying their data in tables and it copies/pastes wonderfully into Excel.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Twin ban would have a bigger impact than the eye ban if the new eldrazi were never printed. If we skip over eldraxi winter the biggest reason the format is the way it is due to the twin bsn. No I am not a twin hater. Honestly twin was probably my favorite magic deck of all the formats I have ever played but I always frlt it was better than everything else and did put a lot of restrictions on what is playable. Twin pretty much made it a rule to run instant dpeed removal and as few 4 drops snd above as possible. Sure 4 drops existed before but not as 4 ofs unless it was siege rhino and thst was just because that card is overrated and was actually bad. The unbans did not change much and many of the new printings eould not see play if twin was lrgal.
Grixis became grixis twin last year and grixis began to fade away after jace got printed and jeskai was only playable as a twin deck, Jeskai won an GP so I don't know how you can claim that control was better last year (twin isn't a control deck), the game in general is more interactive because of the bannings of bloom/twin and that's not arguable, Nahiri wouldn't be a playable card if twin was around, Kiki-chord didn't have a great twin matchup hence why hoogland didn't place well until it left, Ancestral promotes great magic as it rewards grindy decks for surviving aggro decks and it gives them a good fight against jund, etc. I don't know how to say this to you but twin isn't NEVER coming off of the ban list so there is really no point in arguing about it. Unbanning twin does nothing positive for the meta but shrink meta shares. Wizards just released an article about how the meta is getting healthier and I agree with them. This has been the best point in modern history to build and play decks. I would like the game to move forward and gives us more interactive cards/decks to play instead of a deck that suppresses them. But if you want to keep discussing twin even though it has a modern grave, go right ahead.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Blood moon is different as the card affects both players on the field. To play blood moon correctly your deck has to make sacrifices. Choke offers none of these sacrifices and makes decks sequence worse. But w/e lets keep on complaining about twin since the card is clearly coming off of the banlist next unban.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
It isn't ban worthy - people just have nothing better to talk about.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Not saying i agree with any of these bans, but why would they be looking at cards from decks less than .5% of the meta? We get it, you hate ensnaring bridge. Move along please
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
I agree. You really only want it if you are playing a Green deck that has a poor matchup against decks that have a lot of Islands, which isn't as common as one would think. There are so many other ways to beat Blue decks that also help with other matchups that I don't know why you would limit yourself to a card like Choke. Now in Legacy where Blue is pretty much a given to be the best color, it is sometimes necessary.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I can't imagine they're looking at CoCo, but there MIGHT be an argument for the other two. MIGHT.
very true and well said. it seems by your stats here that twin existing in modern didnt have much impact on the "policing" aspect it was said to be doing.
and modern didnt seem to change much from twin leaving either ( except for a lower amount of snapcaster decks overall)
decks playing:
none
decks playing:
none
Mox Opal
Simian Spirit Guide
Become Immense
Opal is the card to ban if Affinity is ever a problem (it's not now). SSG is not a fair Magic card and largely serves to enable broken pre-T4 plays, and I'm an Ad Nauseam player who can admit that. Just because Ad Nauseam doesn't break SSG, doesn't mean the card isn't broken. Finally, Become Immense is the clear card to ban to nerf Infect if it's ever a problem. Delve cards are busted and Infect was significantly less powerful before Immense was printed.
I am still predicting that we get through next year's April banlist update without any new bans in Modern, these cards included.
How is that unhealthy? You perceive a potential threat, and play around it. Mana bases are just another aspect of the game that can be targeted, nothing sacred about them.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk