I am under the general impression that former twin pilots here have a very poor understanding of how frustrating twin is to play against, especially for newer or more casual players, but even for more experienced ones. It doesn'tlet youplaymagic and is obviouslyunfair. Twin is the kind of blue deck that causes player to hate blue, and there are a lot of players who already hate blue.
Regardless, this thread is a masterpiece of people with bias in one way or another. I don't mind twin and disagreed with the ban, but I do get why people might irrationally hate the deck: it's tilting in the same way lantern is tilting in that you can see your cards, but you know you can't play them the way you want to play them, if at all. Bad feels.
~~~
I think wasteland and force of will would solve the format. Also, preordain is secretly card advantage and would help control a lot. Jace is a trap, Mystic is seriously overrated, and this thread is hilarious.
I agree with wasteland, but i think that stifle would help much more than force of will
Guys, please, stop complaining about Twin. It's impossible to unban him now bcs you have to ban some other cards like Ancestral vision to not let him dominate Modern format.
Train left and you can't do anything about this.
Not sure what you mean concerning Authority of the Consuls, given that all the tokens they'd make off the Twin would enter the battlefield tapped and then fizzle away at the end step.
Does anyone go around talking up about how Shocklands are "sooooo goooood" and how they'd be used in addition to regular duals in Legacy/Vintage because of that fact?
I'm not complaining about Serum Visions. I'm simply arguing that it is not "sooooo goooood", as claimed by "ashtonkutcher" before going on to essentially say why Serum Visions is good enough for Modern when it really isn't.
Shocklands are good enough however, making that analogy irrelevant.
Serum Visions ranks among the top 10 most played spells in Modern. Clearly it's good. The amount of consistency it provides is well worth the 4 slots.
If the best cantrip in Modern was Peek then you'd be justified in calling it terrible, because decks wouldn't play 4 Peek, they'd put 1 land and 3 other spells in those slots instead. But that isn't the case with SV. So SV is good. So good.
Shocklands and SV are powerful cards in Modern. I don't care about them being too weak in Legacy because we're in the Modern forum.
People play Serum Visions in high quantities because it is the only way for blue decks to have any semblance of consistency while opponents are allowed to cast better Ponders and one-mana Impulses. Most people agree that Serum in a vacuum is a bad card that only sees play out of necessity.
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Modern UWUW Control/Midrange/Bad JundUW WUBRGHumansWUBRG BGMidrangeBG
Cheeri0's is a deck that is easy to beat if you interact with them. Infect the same. the only decks you pointed out that actually attempt to strictly do a similar thing are Goyro's and Storm and those are currently no where near as consistent as the Twin combo. Cheeri0's and Infect actually force you play magic you need to interact with them to beat them. Twin had 2 dedicated hate cards and was still better than the hate because of the 3 hate cards only one was good enough to run main deck.
You're such an unbelievable hypocrite, dude. Cheeri0s and Infect are fine because you can beat them by interacting with them? What exactly do you think beat Twin? Twin's worst matchups were all the interactive decks in the format. And Twin couldn't win before turn 4, whereas decks like Infect, UR Battle Rage, and especially Cheeri0s can win regularly on turn 3, and sometimes on turn 2. And there were tons of maindeckable cards that were good against Twin. Spellskite, hand disruption, LotV, creature removal, Abrupt Decay, counterspells. These are all maindeckable things that were good against Twin. And then in your sideboard you can bring in hosers like Choke, Boil, Rending Volley, Nature's Claim, Rakdos Charm, Torpor Orb, and the new Authority of the Consuls if it's ever unbanned.
The prison decks you pointed to are all much easier to beat than the Twin Combo and that is why they are far less played. You want to beat a Blood Moon deck, fetch up some basics, Lantern Control is also easily beaten by most of the same tools used to beat affinity. Not being hypocritical Blood Moon its self doesn't make it so that you cannot play the game, it punishes greedy mana bases if your running 24 lands and Blood Moon shuts your deck down that is really your fault, perfect mana is not a given in the game no matter how pampered you have been. Twin demands that you simply cannot play anything because you will instantly lose, you will not have a chance to draw out of it like against Blue Moon (which is why that deck kind of sucks). Its funny that you point to CoCo Company as on twins level of broken it is good but it can just wiff, if I tap out on 3 to commit a threat and you go pestermite untap Twin you are not going to wiff.
So if we're going by how easy decks are to beat, then we need to ban every deck that had a higher overall win percentage than Twin, because that clearly means they are harder to beat than Twin. So that means we're banning Bant Company, Death Shadow Aggro, Jeskai Control, Naya Zoo, Affinity, Elves, Soul Sisters, Bogles, and Merfolk. All these decks need something banned from them because they all had higher win percentages than Twin when MTGGoldfish did their analysis of 28k games of Modern a little over a year ago.
And your argument against Twin was that it made you wait until you had enough mana to hold up removal before casting your creatures or whatever else, effectively taxing your mana. What do you think Blood Moon does? Blood Moon stops you from casting your spells because it screws up your mana fixing. Chalice of the Void stops you from casting your spells by countering them. Lantern Control just doesn't let you have relevant spells. These forms of taxing your mana and what spells you can play are totally fine, but Twin making you represent removal is not? And if you're tapping out on 3 to play a threat when you know or suspect you're playing against Twin, then you made a bad play and don't deserve to win that game. It's like tapping out when your opponent has a Blighted Agent across the board. It's a bad play and you can't be mad if you get killed for making it.
Just admit it dude, you just don't like the deck. I could at least respect your opinion of not liking the deck for personal reasons, but every argument you've ever made against Twin in these threads has been really weak and hypocritical when you're fine with other decks that do the exact same things that you complain about Twin for. You don't need to come up with bull*****, just say you don't want the deck back because you don't like it.
this is what I find alot too, people seem to hate twin beacuse it beats their linear decks. when youll never see bgx players complaining about twin because they run removal and disruption. there is a clear bias here.
and since this meta is more linear than not. its no suprise to me why alot hate this deck......and also why it performs so well.
Pod proves your statement about "bans that are supposed to shape and level the playing field, but none of them have actually worked" statement is completely wrong, while Pod was legal no other value creature decks existed in any competitive sense.
What does Pod prove? That we have the same damn menace with Collected Company now? How about Goryo's Vengeance? How about Through the Breach? What's the actual difference when we have decks that kill you turn 3 anyway? Why are you being so selective where you think some decks deserve a banning and others not?
This banned list is completely arbitrary, and yes for me personally Birthing Pod pushes the line of being a broken card in the Modern format. Yet at the same time, we never had any decent blue consistency cards unbanned to try and keep Pod in check.
It's definitely one of the cards I think deserves a second chance in a format that isn't being arbitrarily sculpted, based on people who complain because they suck at Magic.
heres a crazy idea: lets unban twin,sfm, bbe. all at once.
wouldnt this balance fair decks with each other? and also help blue out?
Guys, please, stop complaining about Twin. It's impossible to unban him now bcs you have to ban some other cards like Ancestral vision to not let him dominate Modern format.
Train left and you can't do anything about this.
Not sure what you mean concerning Authority of the Consuls, given that all the tokens they'd make off the Twin would enter the battlefield tapped and then fizzle away at the end step.
Does anyone go around talking up about how Shocklands are "sooooo goooood" and how they'd be used in addition to regular duals in Legacy/Vintage because of that fact?
I'm not complaining about Serum Visions. I'm simply arguing that it is not "sooooo goooood", as claimed by "ashtonkutcher" before going on to essentially say why Serum Visions is good enough for Modern when it really isn't.
Shocklands are good enough however, making that analogy irrelevant.
Serum Visions ranks among the top 10 most played spells in Modern. Clearly it's good. The amount of consistency it provides is well worth the 4 slots.
If the best cantrip in Modern was Peek then you'd be justified in calling it terrible, because decks wouldn't play 4 Peek, they'd put 1 land and 3 other spells in those slots instead. But that isn't the case with SV. So SV is good. So good.
Shocklands and SV are powerful cards in Modern. I don't care about them being too weak in Legacy because we're in the Modern forum.
People play Serum Visions in high quantities because it is the only way for blue decks to have any semblance of consistency while opponents are allowed to cast better Ponders and one-mana Impulses. Most people agree that Serum in a vacuum is a bad card that only sees play out of necessity.
People play Serum Visions in high quantities because it is the only way for blue decks to have any semblance of consistency while opponents are allowed to cast better Ponders and one-mana Impulses. Most people agree that Serum in a vacuum is a bad card that only sees play out of necessity.
And yet Serum Visions sees play in more decks than Ancient Stirrings or Oath of Nissa. So no matter how broken you try to make Stirrings sound, calling it a one-mana Impulse, SV is still better.
SV in a vacuum is a bad card, if your "vacuum" transcends format boundaries and extends to the realm of Brainstorm or even Ancestral Recall. If your "vacuum" consists solely of what's in Modern, excluding the banned cards, it's a great card. It wouldn't be among the top 10 spells otherwise.
Do you think shocklands are bad cards that only see play out of necessity?
I am under the general impression that former twin pilots here have a very poor understanding of how frustrating twin is to play against, especially for newer or more casual players, but even for more experienced ones. It doesn'tlet youplaymagic and is obviouslyunfair. Twin is the kind of blue deck that causes player to hate blue, and there are a lot of players who already hate blue.
Regardless, this thread is a masterpiece of people with bias in one way or another. I don't mind twin and disagreed with the ban, but I do get why people might irrationally hate the deck: it's tilting in the same way lantern is tilting in that you can see your cards, but you know you can't play them the way you want to play them, if at all. Bad feels.
~~~
I think wasteland and force of will would solve the format. Also, preordain is secretly card advantage and would help control a lot. Jace is a trap, Mystic is seriously overrated, and this thread is hilarious.
I take some serious exception to your statement that counters are not playing magic. Unless we all just want to play past, or above, each other there is no difference between your Goyf being removed by Spell Snare instead of Fatal Push.
Its the irrational hate of counter magic that leads to brain dead formats like the current standard. 'I drop my creatures on curve and swing'.
A few things I think worthy of noting regarding blue's place in the current modern metagame:
1. The problem with blue decks (when I say blue decks I'm talking about attrition based blue decks and not things like Bant Eldrazi, Infect, or Merfolk) trying to play a control strategy via attrition is that the strategy to get to a point where attrition matters is very difficult via deck composition itself. A lot of control decks have to play 24+ lands versus aggro decks often playing a much lower number (Death's Shadow playing ~18). That makes it tough when you may have 6+ more lands in your deck than your opponent. Compare that to Legacy where Miracles runs ~21 land. That matters in a game designed to get to topdecking. If you compare the essential backbone of this to Jund decks it's not that dissimilar. Jund decks are attrition decks that have a goal of ending up with both players having nothing in hand while the Jund player has the only on-board presence. Blue attrition decks often have the goal of the opponent having nothing in hand, neither player having much on the battlefield, and the blue player having an in-hand presence. Strength on-board vs. strength in-hand is a big difference when a tarmogoyf can close out a game in 3 or 4 attacks.
2. Card advantage (one route for attrition) is difficult in older formats because the mana investment to add more cards to hand has a significant opportunity cose. Esper Charm is a great magic card but very constraining on manabases. Things like Kolaghan's Command, Electrolyze, Think Twice, Ancestral Vision, Cryptic Command all provide options for card advantage but have big constraints in them. Again, compare that to Miracles which is running Predict; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; and Snapcaster Mage as card advantage in most builds with built in CA via cards like Counterbalance + Top as well.
3. Life totals are under a fair bit more stress in Modern as well with needing to often shock yourself once or twice based on deckbuilding mana constraints (look at how a Grixis Control deck plays). This is one of the reasons why things like Burn are more popular in modern relative to legacy.
These three deckbuilding constraints make it a risky proposition trying to play long and win via reactive attrition. I think it's very easy to look at deckbuilding options and realize that countermagic is often worse than discard. Spending one mana (and maybe some life) and a card to (ideally) take a card from your opponent is technically a tempo-negative play, it may be more efficient than holding up modern's situational countermagic.
Blue attrition decks are really (and have been for a long time) struggling to have something worth working towards. Esper Control is working towards a big token production spell or refuelling with Sphinx's Revelation. Grixis Control grinds card advantage one step at a time until its resources run over the opponent. Decks of this style work towards incremental advantage. Compare this to decks like Twin of old or Scapeshift with Blue. They can make use of Remand because they have the ability to have a bit more of a proactive gameplan that lets them have something to clearly work towards. That is their clock (if they survive enough to assemble the requisite cards they win). Attrition style decks miss out on that and that's one reason why decks like Blue Moon never quite held a metashare like Splinter Twin could. This is why decks with AV and Sword of the Meek haven't been able to take off once added to the format after Twin left.
That's not to say that blue doesn't have excellent cards, or even threats. Snapcaster, Vendilion Clique, Delver of Secrets, Geist, Spell Queller are all really good magic cards.
But what it boils down to is that people wanting to play an attrition strategy as well as a blue deck are starting to realize that blue's traditional strength of being a reactive counterspell deck are quite limited. Look at Corey Burkhart's GP list (4 Cryptics, 1 Countersqall, 1 Logic Knot, 2 Spell Snare) and 22 lands. It plays fewer lands than a traditional control deck. It has a small counterspell package and is more focused on removal with 11 spells or the evolution of Esper decks playing maindeck Liliana of the Veil and discard spells.
The traditional reactive attrition strategy of stablize early and grind to the point you can't lose while slowly winning at your leisure is just not as viable in modern as it is in other formats.
That strategy is only viable in small card pools with some strong control cards like rtr/theros standard or back in 1994 magic. For the most part control in strong formats always a plan b of a combo win or some kind of broken lock to the game. This is not a new thing happening in modern it is just that the only viable thing to simulate the combo control or prison control decks of legacy and vintage was twin. I do have to add that Saheeli is showing promise since unlike restkiki it is a turn faster which makes it able to beat tron and ad nauseam and punish stumbles from an opponent. Decks just need easy wins in eternal formats to balance out the times you lose to variance.
I am under the general impression that former twin pilots here have a very poor understanding of how frustrating twin is to play against, especially for newer or more casual players, but even for more experienced ones. It doesn'tlet youplaymagic and is obviouslyunfair. Twin is the kind of blue deck that causes player to hate blue, and there are a lot of players who already hate blue.
Regardless, this thread is a masterpiece of people with bias in one way or another. I don't mind twin and disagreed with the ban, but I do get why people might irrationally hate the deck: it's tilting in the same way lantern is tilting in that you can see your cards, but you know you can't play them the way you want to play them, if at all. Bad feels.
~~~
I think wasteland and force of will would solve the format. Also, preordain is secretly card advantage and would help control a lot. Jace is a trap, Mystic is seriously overrated, and this thread is hilarious.
I take some serious exception to your statement that counters are not playing magic. Unless we all just want to play past, or above, each other there is no difference between your Goyf being removed by Spell Snare instead of Fatal Push.
Its the irrational hate of counter magic that leads to brain dead formats like the current standard. 'I drop my creatures on curve and swing'.
If all my opponent's deck does is a) threaten to kill me or b) threaten to counter my spell, it feels like "not getting to play." It's the "I have something to say during all of your turns" that can get to people.
Please note that I personally had no problem with twin, nor do I have a problem with countermagic. There are, however, other perspectives out there, and it's amusing (to me) watching blue/nonblue players entirely misrepresent and/or misunderstand one another (as you have done).
As a related example, I consider lantern control to be highly interactive, interesting magic. Many people on this forum refer to the deck as boring, non-interactive, and linear. The challenge, to me, is to grasp why a person might say that (even when they disagree), and if I can internalize why another person enjoys/hates a certain deck, I find myself able to enjoy/tolerate decks I might otherwise despise.
I did not misunderstand you at all, you quite directly implied that counters are preventing people from playing magic. They are not. Both players are tapping mana, and casting spells. :]
If you feel it or not, by stating it the way you did that is certainly the implication. Counters != Playing Magic.
I actually dont hate Lantern either, if you have outs keep playing, if not, scoop em up.
Perhaps as a Turn's player my perspective is skewed.
Unbanning SFM and Twin together could be exceptionally dangerous, could you imagine a Jeskai Twin deck that played a must answer card like SFM on the fair axis while threatening the combo? I think unbanning both could be disastrous for the format, Twin could play the fair and unfair game better than every deck, and would definitely forgo those Blood Moons in the sb for curbing it's biggest predators in GBx
I did not misunderstand you at all, you quite directly implied that counters are preventing people from playing magic. They are not. Both players are tapping mana, and casting spells. :]
If you feel it or not, by stating it the way you did that is certainly the implication. Counters != Playing Magic.
I actually dont hate Lantern either, if you have outs keep playing, if not, scoop em up.
Perhaps as a Turn's player my perspective is skewed.
I don't disagree with you! I do not believe that counters!=magic, nor did I find twin to be uninteresting or noninteractive. But you might be missing that I'm attempting to dive into the mindset of a person who hates countermagic + twin.
Ensnaring bridge does not prevent a player from playing magic, but it does sometimes make it feel like you can't play magic, and can be incredibly frustrating. This is exacerbated when the lantern pilot only lets them play spells with their "permission". Twin can easily elicit similar feels, even if the spells are radically different.
That's not true at all. Bridge can straight up lock you from playing magic if you're a fair creature deck, and a ton of other non combo decks on game 1
Twin never locks you out, part of the "locking you out" is the bluffing aspect. I've played Twin, there were plenty of times I didn't have the combo available by turn 4
Twin never locks you out, part of the "locking you out" is the bluffing aspect.
The point: why some players might hate the deck. The sad face, "I don't get to do my stuff because scared and hard". I think some players might not appreciate how hard some people take this, and could perhaps be a little more understanding of why some people aren't buying the "twin is good interactive magic" argument (even if by most measures twin is in fact good, interactive magic).
Having thought about a Jace, the Mind Sculptor unban, I'm actually shunting it to the bottom of my personal priority list. I still think it would do good things for Delver and U-based control. The problem I see is that GBx exists as the undisputed king of midrange, and until that changes, Jace's biggest impact would be powering up yet another GBx deck (Sultai) while everyone else gets to pick up the crumbs. I'm all for BUG being competitive, but that's pretty far down my list of changes I'd like to see in the format.
So I think the better changes would be:
Boost Blue-based strategies across the board by unbanning Preordain (or Dig Through Time while holding up Pact of Negation as a safety valve if it pushes spell-based combo too far, but that's a much slimmer chance)
Attempt to break the G/GB stranglehold on midrange and encourage interaction by unbanning Stoneforge Mystic
I think item 2 would be great, but item 1 probably does more to move the metagame in a healthy direction. I'd love to see WX become a more viable midrange shell outside GB, nichecombos, and Bant Eldrazi, but I'd rather see a healthy archetype empowered than see midrange released from the Tarmogoyf vice-grip. Even if only by a little.
I'd say the risk of breaking something by unbanning both Preordain and Stoneforge Mystic at the same time is pretty slim, but that seems like a very bold move. Then again, they did give us two simultaneously unbans in April of high-powered cards*, so you never know.
*The lack of results put up by either card doesn't mean they weren't risky unbans in the eyes of many, including likely WotC. A powerful, cheap, 2-card combo plus a deferred Ancestral Recall (right on the heels of Treasure Cruise breaking the format in half) that could conceivably even slot into the same deck seems honestly riskier than an upgraded Serum Visions, now that Probe and most of Storm's rituals have been banned out of the format.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
I did not misunderstand you at all, you quite directly implied that counters are preventing people from playing magic. They are not. Both players are tapping mana, and casting spells. :]
If you feel it or not, by stating it the way you did that is certainly the implication. Counters != Playing Magic.
I actually dont hate Lantern either, if you have outs keep playing, if not, scoop em up.
Perhaps as a Turn's player my perspective is skewed.
I don't disagree with you! I do not believe that counters!=magic, nor did I find twin to be uninteresting or noninteractive. But you might be missing that I'm attempting to dive into the mindset of a person who hates countermagic + twin.
Ensnaring bridge does not prevent a player from playing magic, but it does sometimes make it feel like you can't play magic, and can be incredibly frustrating. This is exacerbated when the lantern pilot only lets them play spells with their "permission". Twin can easily elicit similar feels, even if the spells are radically different.
I hear you. I just take issue with people expressing things in a certain way, because it leads to validating those statements as true. "A lie told enough times..." and all that. Same with 'nobody brews in modern' 'modern is too expensive' 'modern is not supported' and the multitude of clickbait level posts (not saying yours is) that are made to generate a response, when the statement's themselves, are simply false.
People dislike being countered, that is fact. I get that, but its an important part of the magic ecosystem, for a robust, self controlling, format.
People dislike being countered, that is fact. I get that, but its an important part of the magic ecosystem, for a robust, self controlling, format.
Now, a real interesting question might be: what if the most popular format happens to be the one with the worst countermagic? While one might say the format needs help, another might conclude that countermagic is just a bad thing, and proceed to make it worse, because fun. Is this a legitimate line of reasoning? Would this actually be good for the format?
I think it makes for a terrible format, though (unfortunately) we've gotten some solid vibes from wizards on how they might have answered it. Still hoping for that Force of Will reprint (not holding my breath though).
...
2Attempt to break the G/GB stranglehold on midrange and encourage interaction by unbanning Stoneforge Mystic
...
ermm... She goes straight into Junk...
That said with fatal push there's an argument for a WB midrange with 4 ghost quarters (or some other mix of lands) could be stronger. Goyf is great, but Lingering souls + stoneforge is a decent backbone as well.
It's not really an option today to play white core midrange, or even white emphasized.
...
2Attempt to break the G/GB stranglehold on midrange and encourage interaction by unbanning Stoneforge Mystic
...
ermm... She goes straight into Junk...
That said with fatal push there's an argument for a WB midrange with 4 ghost quarters (or some other mix of lands) could be stronger. Goyf is great, but Lingering souls + stoneforge is a decent backbone as well.
It's not really an option today to play white core midrange, or even white emphasized.
Precisely. Just because one GB deck can run her (and as 600+ games of testing demonstrated, has overall middling results even vs. decks that aren't prepared for SFM) doesn't mean that other decks won't become viable. Abzan cutting Bob, Noble, Goyf, Liliana, or Flayer for SFM is a much more marginal improvement than GW cutting Loxodon Smiter.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
People dislike being countered, that is fact. I get that, but its an important part of the magic ecosystem, for a robust, self controlling, format.
Now, a real interesting question might be: what if the most popular format happens to be the one with the worst countermagic? While one might say the format needs help, another might conclude that countermagic is just a bad thing, and proceed to make it worse, because fun. Is this a legitimate line of reasoning? Would this actually be good for the format?
I think it makes for a terrible format, though (unfortunately) we've gotten some solid vibes from wizards on how they might have answered it. Still hoping for that Force of Will reprint (not holding my breath though).
Its an interesting question, for sure. I think an OPPRESSIVE control deck would be an issue, or one that is excessively time consuming (Top?) but Delver ran counters during its peak in the TC era did it not? People reported a huge spike in play at that time.
I think Modern is the most popular, and I think an oppressive draw go would be a turn off, but I also dont think it could stop the aggro beasts of this format very well. The format's popularity was super high with Twin around, and it was the 'control deck' at the time. A small boost in power (Preordain, Jace, whatever) is not asking too much to make Control more viability, while preventing it from being oppressive as some feel Twin was.
I play Blue, because I hate being a victim to whatever my opponent wants to do. I need to be able to say 'no lets hold off on that a moment' because otherwise the format to me, feels unbearable. Tron? Eldazi? 10 discards to your hand? Affinity dropping its hand Turn 2? Elves on Turn 3? Burn? Meh.
And you are quite right.
I agree with wasteland, but i think that stifle would help much more than force of will
Not sure what you mean concerning Authority of the Consuls, given that all the tokens they'd make off the Twin would enter the battlefield tapped and then fizzle away at the end step.
People play Serum Visions in high quantities because it is the only way for blue decks to have any semblance of consistency while opponents are allowed to cast better Ponders and one-mana Impulses. Most people agree that Serum in a vacuum is a bad card that only sees play out of necessity.
GWSelvala and the Return to HumanityGW
UWDragonlord Ojutai, Control's Elder DragonUW
UBGTasigur, the God-Pharaoh's Gift to EDHUBG
UBRNicol Bolas and his Super
friendsPawnsUBRModern
UWUW Control/Midrange/Bad JundUW
WUBRGHumansWUBRG
BGMidrangeBG
Um. How exactly are all the tapped tokens going to swing at me?
this is what I find alot too, people seem to hate twin beacuse it beats their linear decks. when youll never see bgx players complaining about twin because they run removal and disruption. there is a clear bias here.
and since this meta is more linear than not. its no suprise to me why alot hate this deck......and also why it performs so well.
decks playing:
none
heres a crazy idea: lets unban twin,sfm, bbe. all at once.
wouldnt this balance fair decks with each other? and also help blue out?
decks playing:
none
Yeah, casting Serum Visions feels bad every time.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
SV in a vacuum is a bad card, if your "vacuum" transcends format boundaries and extends to the realm of Brainstorm or even Ancestral Recall. If your "vacuum" consists solely of what's in Modern, excluding the banned cards, it's a great card. It wouldn't be among the top 10 spells otherwise.
Do you think shocklands are bad cards that only see play out of necessity?
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I take some serious exception to your statement that counters are not playing magic. Unless we all just want to play past, or above, each other there is no difference between your Goyf being removed by Spell Snare instead of Fatal Push.
Its the irrational hate of counter magic that leads to brain dead formats like the current standard. 'I drop my creatures on curve and swing'.
Spirits
That strategy is only viable in small card pools with some strong control cards like rtr/theros standard or back in 1994 magic. For the most part control in strong formats always a plan b of a combo win or some kind of broken lock to the game. This is not a new thing happening in modern it is just that the only viable thing to simulate the combo control or prison control decks of legacy and vintage was twin. I do have to add that Saheeli is showing promise since unlike restkiki it is a turn faster which makes it able to beat tron and ad nauseam and punish stumbles from an opponent. Decks just need easy wins in eternal formats to balance out the times you lose to variance.
If all my opponent's deck does is a) threaten to kill me or b) threaten to counter my spell, it feels like "not getting to play." It's the "I have something to say during all of your turns" that can get to people.
Please note that I personally had no problem with twin, nor do I have a problem with countermagic. There are, however, other perspectives out there, and it's amusing (to me) watching blue/nonblue players entirely misrepresent and/or misunderstand one another (as you have done).
As a related example, I consider lantern control to be highly interactive, interesting magic. Many people on this forum refer to the deck as boring, non-interactive, and linear. The challenge, to me, is to grasp why a person might say that (even when they disagree), and if I can internalize why another person enjoys/hates a certain deck, I find myself able to enjoy/tolerate decks I might otherwise despise.
If you feel it or not, by stating it the way you did that is certainly the implication. Counters != Playing Magic.
I actually dont hate Lantern either, if you have outs keep playing, if not, scoop em up.
Perhaps as a Turn's player my perspective is skewed.
Spirits
I don't disagree with you! I do not believe that counters!=magic, nor did I find twin to be uninteresting or noninteractive. But you might be missing that I'm attempting to dive into the mindset of a person who hates countermagic + twin.
Ensnaring bridge does not prevent a player from playing magic, but it does sometimes make it feel like you can't play magic, and can be incredibly frustrating. This is exacerbated when the lantern pilot only lets them play spells with their "permission". Twin can easily elicit similar feels, even if the spells are radically different.
Twin never locks you out, part of the "locking you out" is the bluffing aspect. I've played Twin, there were plenty of times I didn't have the combo available by turn 4
The point: why some players might hate the deck. The sad face, "I don't get to do my stuff because scared and hard". I think some players might not appreciate how hard some people take this, and could perhaps be a little more understanding of why some people aren't buying the "twin is good interactive magic" argument (even if by most measures twin is in fact good, interactive magic).
Mother of runes, please?
So I think the better changes would be:
I think item 2 would be great, but item 1 probably does more to move the metagame in a healthy direction. I'd love to see WX become a more viable midrange shell outside GB, niche combos, and Bant Eldrazi, but I'd rather see a healthy archetype empowered than see midrange released from the Tarmogoyf vice-grip. Even if only by a little.
I'd say the risk of breaking something by unbanning both Preordain and Stoneforge Mystic at the same time is pretty slim, but that seems like a very bold move. Then again, they did give us two simultaneously unbans in April of high-powered cards*, so you never know.
*The lack of results put up by either card doesn't mean they weren't risky unbans in the eyes of many, including likely WotC. A powerful, cheap, 2-card combo plus a deferred Ancestral Recall (right on the heels of Treasure Cruise breaking the format in half) that could conceivably even slot into the same deck seems honestly riskier than an upgraded Serum Visions, now that Probe and most of Storm's rituals have been banned out of the format.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
I hear you. I just take issue with people expressing things in a certain way, because it leads to validating those statements as true. "A lie told enough times..." and all that. Same with 'nobody brews in modern' 'modern is too expensive' 'modern is not supported' and the multitude of clickbait level posts (not saying yours is) that are made to generate a response, when the statement's themselves, are simply false.
People dislike being countered, that is fact. I get that, but its an important part of the magic ecosystem, for a robust, self controlling, format.
Spirits
ermm... She goes straight into Junk...
That is very fair.
Now, a real interesting question might be: what if the most popular format happens to be the one with the worst countermagic? While one might say the format needs help, another might conclude that countermagic is just a bad thing, and proceed to make it worse, because fun. Is this a legitimate line of reasoning? Would this actually be good for the format?
I think it makes for a terrible format, though (unfortunately) we've gotten some solid vibes from wizards on how they might have answered it. Still hoping for that Force of Will reprint (not holding my breath though).
That said with fatal push there's an argument for a WB midrange with 4 ghost quarters (or some other mix of lands) could be stronger. Goyf is great, but Lingering souls + stoneforge is a decent backbone as well.
It's not really an option today to play white core midrange, or even white emphasized.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Precisely. Just because one GB deck can run her (and as 600+ games of testing demonstrated, has overall middling results even vs. decks that aren't prepared for SFM) doesn't mean that other decks won't become viable. Abzan cutting Bob, Noble, Goyf, Liliana, or Flayer for SFM is a much more marginal improvement than GW cutting Loxodon Smiter.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
Its an interesting question, for sure. I think an OPPRESSIVE control deck would be an issue, or one that is excessively time consuming (Top?) but Delver ran counters during its peak in the TC era did it not? People reported a huge spike in play at that time.
I think Modern is the most popular, and I think an oppressive draw go would be a turn off, but I also dont think it could stop the aggro beasts of this format very well. The format's popularity was super high with Twin around, and it was the 'control deck' at the time. A small boost in power (Preordain, Jace, whatever) is not asking too much to make Control more viability, while preventing it from being oppressive as some feel Twin was.
I play Blue, because I hate being a victim to whatever my opponent wants to do. I need to be able to say 'no lets hold off on that a moment' because otherwise the format to me, feels unbearable. Tron? Eldazi? 10 discards to your hand? Affinity dropping its hand Turn 2? Elves on Turn 3? Burn? Meh.
Lets slow down here.
Spirits