I know this is off-topic, but it's nice to see the destruction of a whole archetype in Magic with the Legacy banning of Sensei's Divining Top. Legacy was the only format in which you could run Control and be very successful. Now it's Combo, Tempo, and Prison in Legacy and what...Aggro and Midrange in Modern. Terrible.
Well they destroyed Twin in Modern, so I guess it makes sense.
Twin was never a control deck. Its first iteration was a pure combo deck and it turned into tempo-combo. Just running cards that use the word "counter" doesn't make something a control deck.
Can we all just come to an agreement that Twin is the cause of cancer, killed my grandfather, and kicked all our dogs so that bizzycola doesn't feel the need to keep making up ***** about the deck and the rest of us don't have to keep expending our energy refuting his statements that he repeats every other week? You're right bizzy, Twin was the reason there's instability in the Middle East, and we're one step closer to world peace with it banned.
Nice name calling and fantastic exaggeration. In stead of countering a of the claims I made call me names and ridicule me that will prove your point.
Channel is a precedence for the Banning of Twin, it is a known bad element in the game. Make no remarks against what I said because you cannot. Nothing I said is untrue regarding the deck and any comparison that can be drawn between it and other decks are all examples of toxic decks that had negative impact on the formats in which they existed.
I liked playing Twin I just didn't kid myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best combo deck in the format.
Can we all just come to an agreement that Twin is the cause of cancer, killed my grandfather, and kicked all our dogs so that bizzycola doesn't feel the need to keep making up ***** about the deck and the rest of us don't have to keep expending our energy refuting his statements that he repeats every other week? You're right bizzy, Twin was the reason there's instability in the Middle East, and we're one step closer to world peace with it banned.
Nice name calling and fantastic exaggeration. In stead of countering a of the claims I made call me names and ridicule me that will prove your point.
Channel is a precedence for the Banning of Twin, it is a known bad element in the game. Make no remarks against what I said because you cannot. Nothing I said is untrue regarding the deck and any comparison that can be drawn between it and other decks are all examples of toxic decks that had negative impact on the formats in which they existed.
I liked playing Twin I just didn't kid myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best combo deck in the format.
I counter your claims every other week, dude, and then you make the exact same claim again a week later. I'm getting tired of it. Twin was all three of the major deck types: it could beat down like an aggro deck, play a reactive control game, or look to assemble a combo, sometimes switching these roles within a single game even. To just call it a combo deck is ignoring like 2/3rds of what the deck did. Yes, it could rush to assemble the combo on turn 4 and run it out if needed, but that was certainly not plan A in general.
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Look, if Condemn can be considered good enough to not touch DS decks, then Rending Volley should be fine to hold Twin in place. WoTC doesn't know what the **** they're doing. I'm not necessarily saying DS needs a ban (it doesn't), but their tortured logic when making decisions is inconsistent and contradictory.
I dont disagree with this.
This banlist announcement comes on the heels of a Team Unified GP in which a Condemn-featuring control deck actually took 1st place. How many Rending Volley decks took 1st at a Twin-legal GP again?
Twin was fairly clearly a combo-control deck. Classifying it with Gifts Storm and Ad nauseam is not more correct than classifying it with the control decks (although including Delver as control is dubious). It was a deck that played both games just well enough for plan A or plan B to work. Calling it a combo deck is just as erroneous as calling it a control deck - it was obviously a combo-control deck.
If you compare it on a card-for-card basis, it is obviously much closer to a control deck (blue moon) than to a combo deck (storm). If you had to say it was closer to one or the other, there is no way to argue it is closer to pure combo than pure control.
Another banlist thread, another quick recession into "what does control deck mean." Waiting 6 pages has to be something of a record though.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Look, if Condemn can be considered good enough to not touch DS decks, then Rending Volley should be fine to hold Twin in place. WoTC doesn't know what the **** they're doing. I'm not necessarily saying DS needs a ban (it doesn't), but their tortured logic when making decisions is inconsistent and contradictory.
I dont disagree with this.
This banlist announcement comes on the heels of a Team Unified GP in which a Condemn-featuring control deck actually took 1st place. How many Rending Volley decks took 1st at a Twin-legal GP again?
Yes... a Team Unified GP. 99.9999+% of Modern tournaments are not in the Team Unified format (which impose special deckbuilding constraints that non-team events do not), and thus their results, while interesting, are largely irrelevant to the general format.
Also, 2/3 of what decided the fact the deck "won" had absolutely nothing to do with the deck. Team event, remember.
Agree with this. Also, remember the guy played 3 Condemn in the MB. You can't expect to win a regular GP with that list, you come across Valakut,Nauseam and Storm in the event and you are out because of being so heavily skewed towards the metagame. They knew for a fact that at least 1 member(Most likely Player B) would play Death's Shadow variants.
I'm not digging too much into the Condemn being that good against Shadow.
Can we all just come to an agreement that Twin is the cause of cancer, killed my grandfather, and kicked all our dogs so that bizzycola doesn't feel the need to keep making up ***** about the deck and the rest of us don't have to keep expending our energy refuting his statements that he repeats every other week? You're right bizzy, Twin was the reason there's instability in the Middle East, and we're one step closer to world peace with it banned.
Nice name calling and fantastic exaggeration. In stead of countering a of the claims I made call me names and ridicule me that will prove your point.
Channel is a precedence for the Banning of Twin, it is a known bad element in the game. Make no remarks against what I said because you cannot. Nothing I said is untrue regarding the deck and any comparison that can be drawn between it and other decks are all examples of toxic decks that had negative impact on the formats in which they existed.
I liked playing Twin I just didn't kid myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best combo deck in the format.
I counter your claims every other week, dude, and then you make the exact same claim again a week later. I'm getting tired of it. Twin was all three of the major deck types: it could beat down like an aggro deck, play a reactive control game, or look to assemble a combo, sometimes switching these roles within a single game even. To just call it a combo deck is ignoring like 2/3rds of what the deck did. Yes, it could rush to assemble the combo on turn 4 and run it out if needed, but that was certainly not plan A in general.
No i don't see your dancing around what I said I clearly recognized that the majority of the deck doesn't exist to facilitate the combo. I than said this is what made it the best combo deck, the deck building requirements are far lower than any other modern Combo. I said it is about 7 cards or about 11% of the deck 1/10th and that is why I brought up the comparison between it and Channel Fireball combo, it was banned for being a very similar combo to that a low low cost game winning reward combo. If not for the presence of the combo the deck wouldn't have been able to steal wins with snap beats as often as it would, the entire way that the deck performed was on the back of the opponent having to essentially not play magic during the mid-range of the game because while the snapcaster you eot them with is smacking for 2 a turn if they tap out to attempt to answer the threat they risk losing on the spot. UR has found reasonable homes in Grixis Delver and Grixis DS and to a extent grixis control but I imagine that the delver/DS versions are closer to Twin in terms of more focused on tempo plays.
It was a Instant win incidental combo that was wrapped in a fair decks skin, that is exactly what the Channel Fireball combo was a two card combo that slid into fair decks to liberally and equipped decks with a oops i win combo. I say that Twin is closer to Ad Naus than to Blue Moon because while one is more similar in terms of common cards the other is more similar in primary design goals. Twin's primary goal was the combo its just such a small investment that it can afford to play actual individually good cards rather than a Combo like ad naus which must commit more deck space to the combo. I didn't say its goal was to rush to the combo because that isn't the point of any gotcha type combo's like that or channel fireball or copy-cat it is that you get to play a normal game in which at any time you could just draw the instant win, while your opponent has to assume that you have it unless they know for a matter of fact that you don't. This forces a one sided shutdown of game play which is not healthy to the game and WotC has been rather consistent in banning such combos and I imagine if Copy-cat does well at the PT it will certainly spell its doom in standard (not surprised one bit that they would allow it to persist for a bit as they did the same thing with Caw-Blade during its existence).
No i don't see your dancing around what I said I clearly recognized that the majority of the deck doesn't exist to facilitate the combo. I than said this is what made it the best combo deck, the deck building requirements are far lower than any other modern Combo. I said it is about 7 cards or about 11% of the deck 1/10th and that is why I brought up the comparison between it and Channel Fireball combo, it was banned for being a very similar combo to that a low low cost game winning reward combo.
It was 10 cards. For someone who claims to have been a Twin player, you're woefully ignorant about it. And I'll bite on your challenge here. RUG Scapeshift's combo only takes up 6 cards in the deck, 4 less than Twin's. So why is that deck not the better combo deck, then?
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What bothers me is that we have places like ModernNexus doing all the heavy lifting for them. Look at the data. Does this data match up with how you feel about the format? Whether it be unbanning or telling us no, we don't think this card would be safe, make a decision. Be transparent.
Quit dangling this carrot in front of our faces. We'll talk about Jace at the next meeting. We'll discuss color balance for the next announcement.... heard that before.
Is this how we accomplish things? If so, I'll 100% fund somebody in Renton to make an unban SFM sign.
This is from April 15th.
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I should note something I found interesting about Forsythe's statement. Note this from the announcement:
If there's an easy change to the banned list that could open up more decks in the future, we will examine it when other formats have less pressing needs.
He says "easy change to the banned list." Not "addition" or "banning." This leaves open the possibility that they may be considering an unban to try to rectify any perceived issues in the format.
100% right decision by WotC for this update. I feel that the format is pretty healthy right now and I feel they should leave it alone for a bit. I mean Death's Shadow is pretty popular but I feel that they should let the format adapt to it rather than ban anything,.
I feel that maybe JTMS is fine for the format but that could sky rocket if unbanned. Also, I think they should just leave the banlist as it is t least until. the fall set to see what happens, unless something drastically bad happens
Why is it that every single time there is a new ban list thread up, Splinter Twin always dominates the thread? Seriously, its been over a year, get over it. I am so sick of reading the same freaking thing over and over about Twin.
Anyways, no bans is the best thing they could have done. The format is in a good place right now. I wouldn't expect any unbans or bans anytime soon unless something ridiculous gets printed.
Why is it that every single time there is a new ban list thread up, Splinter Twin always dominates the thread? Seriously, its been over a year, get over it. I am so sick of reading the same freaking thing over and over about Twin.
Anyways, no bans is the best thing they could have done. The format is in a good place right now. I wouldn't expect any unbans or bans anytime soon unless something ridiculous gets printed.
It's not even the ex-Twin players that bring it up every time, there are a couple of anti-Twin trolls who come in these threads and verbatim spew the same misinformation every other week. Whether you think the ban was warranted at the time or not is purely opinion, but these people say things that are just factually wrong to exaggerate their case for the Twin ban, and it's pretty tiring.
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Why is it that every single time there is a new ban list thread up, Splinter Twin always dominates the thread? Seriously, its been over a year, get over it. I am so sick of reading the same freaking thing over and over about Twin.
Anyways, no bans is the best thing they could have done. The format is in a good place right now. I wouldn't expect any unbans or bans anytime soon unless something ridiculous gets printed.
Would people say the format is healthy if aggro decks were 5% of the meta? If mid-range decks were 5%? Sure, the format has a plethora of aggro and big-mana decks, but mid-range is getting bumped down and control is irrelevant. That's an issue. It's not Eldrazi Winter, but let's stop pretending everything is hunky-dory.
It's always the same in these ban related topics.
I come to see if I can catch something useful but before I know it the only thing being discussed is the Twin ban and how bad blue is.
Come on guys come up with something original because this is taking the piss.
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Legacy - Reanimator
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
No i don't see your dancing around what I said I clearly recognized that the majority of the deck doesn't exist to facilitate the combo. I than said this is what made it the best combo deck, the deck building requirements are far lower than any other modern Combo. I said it is about 7 cards or about 11% of the deck 1/10th and that is why I brought up the comparison between it and Channel Fireball combo, it was banned for being a very similar combo to that a low low cost game winning reward combo.
It was 10 cards. For someone who claims to have been a Twin player, you're woefully ignorant about it. And I'll bite on your challenge here. RUG Scapeshift's combo only takes up 6 cards in the deck, 4 less than Twin's. So why is that deck not the better combo deck, then?
you could run 4 Deceivers and 3 Splinter Twins which was the minimal package, the more focused combo versions would run 4/2 split on creatures and 4 of Twin
but you would have known that if you actually played the deck
do you really think what your doing does anything to bolster your claim? it only makes you sound very childish
and RUG scapeshift takes along time to pull off which is why it isn't as good, for some one claims to play magic you don't seem to know much about it
I should note something I found interesting about Forsythe's statement. Note this from the announcement:
If there's an easy change to the banned list that could open up more decks in the future, we will examine it when other formats have less pressing needs.
He says "easy change to the banned list." Not "addition" or "banning." This leaves open the possibility that they may be considering an unban to try to rectify any perceived issues in the format.
in fairness saying a " easy change" doesn't exclude adding or removing just in some way a change.
No i don't see your dancing around what I said I clearly recognized that the majority of the deck doesn't exist to facilitate the combo. I than said this is what made it the best combo deck, the deck building requirements are far lower than any other modern Combo. I said it is about 7 cards or about 11% of the deck 1/10th and that is why I brought up the comparison between it and Channel Fireball combo, it was banned for being a very similar combo to that a low low cost game winning reward combo.
It was 10 cards. For someone who claims to have been a Twin player, you're woefully ignorant about it. And I'll bite on your challenge here. RUG Scapeshift's combo only takes up 6 cards in the deck, 4 less than Twin's. So why is that deck not the better combo deck, then?
it has a higher deck design cost
you have to 5 mountains in play before valakut does anything all you need is Twin and a flash tapper and your golden and can go off T4 without doing anything but hitting your land drops
I mean which is better a combo that only takes 6-10 cards or a combo that demands about 22 cards to set up a early combo kill.. Titanshift is a good combo deck its just that the RG version is better than RUG version most the time since the risk of drawing to many of your mountains and not being able to actually combo off only exists in the RUG version never happens in the RG one, Cryptic Command and remand doesn't really add much to the deck since it already has a natural late game. Not to mention to achieve the same kill speed as a twin deck the Scapeshift deck has to commit to multiple spells to set it up and like many other combo decks will lose to itself because it drew to much prep and no finishers.
did you intentionally choose the less optimal Shift deck as your example or did you not know why the RG one is better?
Agree with this. Also, remember the guy played 3 Condemn in the MB. You can't expect to win a regular GP with that list, you come across Valakut,Nauseam and Storm in the event and you are out because of being so heavily skewed towards the metagame. They knew for a fact that at least 1 member(Most likely Player B) would play Death's Shadow variants.
I'm not digging too much into the Condemn being that good against Shadow.
Actually Condemn is very good against DS it bounces one back to the deck and almost certainly will kill any others they have in play given that they will on resolution gain exactly as much life as the DS had in toughness. Its actually probably a bonkers spell to play in a GP if you expect DS in large numbers. It doesn't hurt that UW Control doesn't care about a aggro player gaining a little life of of it since it will not matter once they take over the game.
you pretty much summed up why Twin was the best combo, it had far less deck building constraints to reliably combo and got to play a instant win combo that could hide inside a deck that just kill you while you hold back trying to not get combed to death.
Yeah, it only had to run 10 cards that are fairlyunplayableon their own, and a bunch of mediocre spells that are overcosted or underpowered in order to help draw into it, and it definitely didn't struggle to kill anything with more than 3 toughness. It also didn't run a tightly packed list with almost no flex slots and it's a combo you could just jam into any deck. Yeah, that's how it was.
I didn't say it could go in any deck please don't put words in my mouth, the reality is that yes the Twin package 7-10 cards is a super small deck building requirement for a instant win combo.
What other combo deck in modern gets away with only needing to run 10 cards that do the instantly win you the game? Scapeshift has to run about 22 dedicated spots to ensure they can combo off in a reasonable time. Ad Naus 17-18 if your only counting the actual cards that have to be cast for the combo and ignore all of the lotus bloom, pentad prism stuff that helps ensure you can cast your combo earlier if you count the spells that speed it up 30 cards that are dedicated to finding and pulling off the combo.
It really only proves my point Twin always was a combo deck and it was the best combo deck precisely because the combo put such little deck building restraints on the player. 7-10 cards vs 22-30 in other combo decks, this is exactly why Twin was Op'ed like channel fireball before it. you get to have a deck that wins like a ad naus deck or a Storm deck but get to play a tempo deck that doesn't just lose to itself like other combo decks. I beat plenty of people with snapcaster beats because they had to assume I have the combo or lose on the spot, so I get the benefit of a T4 onward instant kill regardless if I have it because the deck already wants to play serum visions and protection spells regardless.
Yes it didn't have flex spots because the combo took up the flex spots it would be as if WotC printed a 2 card combo in Jund colors that could instant win the game in a consistent manner like twin it would find its way into the deck....oh wait they did punishing fire.....which is still way slower than Twin and banned because its a 2 card combo that is incidental to the construction of the deck.
you could run 4 Deceivers and 3 Splinter Twins which was the minimal package, the more focused combo versions would run 4/2 split on creatures and 4 of Twin
The only versions that were ever down to 4 combo creatures and 3 Twins were oddly built Temur Twin lists. The default UR build was 6 creatures and 4 Twins, and the default Grixis build was 5-6 creatures and 3-4 Twins. Stop lying dude, just because a few people placed in events with 7 combo pieces doesn't mean it was a common choice. The vast majority of lists were 5-6 creatures and 3-4 Twins.
but you would have known that if you actually played the deck
I'm aware that a few people did that, but to try and make it out like that was a common thing in service to your argument is deceitful. The most common configuration was 10 combo pieces, and the second most common was 8, anything other than that was extremely fringe, and if you were being honest in your discussions here you would have said 10 for the combo pieces. It's just another thing in a long line of you lying on these threads, and I'm going to call you out for it every time because I'm not going to just sit around while people spread misinformation.
and RUG Scapeshift takes along time to pull off which is why it isn't as good, for some one claims to play magic you don't seem to know much about it
I'm well aware of why RUG Scapeshift was never as successful as Twin, but your claim was that Twin was the best combo deck because its combo pieces only took up "10" (which isn't what you said, but is the correct number) slots in the deck, so the rest could be a control shell. Well, Scapeshift's combo took up even fewer slots than Twin's, so clearly your claim is incorrect.
you have to 5 mountains in play before valakut does anything
*6 Mountains
Your talk of the difference of the blue Scapeshift and Titanshift decks is all irrelevant. The bottom line is that Scapeshift is a combo that requires the card Scapeshift and 7 lands in play. If you want to argue that the ramp spells are combo pieces, I'd be willing to give that to you, though. But then I can bring up Saheeli combo, which is another combo with even fewer pieces than Twin. My point is that Twin wasn't the best combo deck just because its combo took up the fewest slots in the deck. It wasn't even a dedicated combo deck in the first place. It was primarily an aggro-control deck that had a combo finish if it needed it. But we've had this discussion many times before and I don't feel like going over it with you again.
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I'm not digging too much into the Condemn being that good against Shadow.
Condemn is very good against Shadow. In terms of getting rid of a Shadow, Path is the best answer, since they can't get it back. Push and Terminate are good, but they have ways to get Shadows back from their graveyards, either with LtLH, Kommand, or Orzhov Charm. Condemn putting it back in the deck is almost as good as Path against Grixis, and arguably better than Push or Terminate against Jund and Esper, as they have to spend a Traverse or Ranger to get it back.
The part that really makes Condemn good, though, is the life gain clause. These decks spend a lot of resources burning themselves down to make the Shadows big, and if you keep giving them life it's difficult for them to get rolling on that plan. You can essentially delay the Shadow deck by several turns with a single Condemn, which for a draw-go control deck is going to put them past the point where they have no chance to overcome your card advantage. And that's not even to mention the huge blowout potential of 2-for-1'ing your opponent if they have 2 Shadows out, or the sweet play Gabe Nassif made where he 3-for-1'd a Grixis Shadow player that attacked with 2 5/5 Shadows and a Gurmag Angler by Condemning the Angler, which subsequently killed both the Shadows too. I definitely think UW Control lists should be running a couple Condemns as additional removal right now.
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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
Nice name calling and fantastic exaggeration. In stead of countering a of the claims I made call me names and ridicule me that will prove your point.
Channel is a precedence for the Banning of Twin, it is a known bad element in the game. Make no remarks against what I said because you cannot. Nothing I said is untrue regarding the deck and any comparison that can be drawn between it and other decks are all examples of toxic decks that had negative impact on the formats in which they existed.
I liked playing Twin I just didn't kid myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best combo deck in the format.
I counter your claims every other week, dude, and then you make the exact same claim again a week later. I'm getting tired of it. Twin was all three of the major deck types: it could beat down like an aggro deck, play a reactive control game, or look to assemble a combo, sometimes switching these roles within a single game even. To just call it a combo deck is ignoring like 2/3rds of what the deck did. Yes, it could rush to assemble the combo on turn 4 and run it out if needed, but that was certainly not plan A in general.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Also, 2/3 of what decided the fact the deck "won" had absolutely nothing to do with the deck. Team event, remember.
I'm not digging too much into the Condemn being that good against Shadow.
No i don't see your dancing around what I said I clearly recognized that the majority of the deck doesn't exist to facilitate the combo. I than said this is what made it the best combo deck, the deck building requirements are far lower than any other modern Combo. I said it is about 7 cards or about 11% of the deck 1/10th and that is why I brought up the comparison between it and Channel Fireball combo, it was banned for being a very similar combo to that a low low cost game winning reward combo. If not for the presence of the combo the deck wouldn't have been able to steal wins with snap beats as often as it would, the entire way that the deck performed was on the back of the opponent having to essentially not play magic during the mid-range of the game because while the snapcaster you eot them with is smacking for 2 a turn if they tap out to attempt to answer the threat they risk losing on the spot. UR has found reasonable homes in Grixis Delver and Grixis DS and to a extent grixis control but I imagine that the delver/DS versions are closer to Twin in terms of more focused on tempo plays.
It was a Instant win incidental combo that was wrapped in a fair decks skin, that is exactly what the Channel Fireball combo was a two card combo that slid into fair decks to liberally and equipped decks with a oops i win combo. I say that Twin is closer to Ad Naus than to Blue Moon because while one is more similar in terms of common cards the other is more similar in primary design goals. Twin's primary goal was the combo its just such a small investment that it can afford to play actual individually good cards rather than a Combo like ad naus which must commit more deck space to the combo. I didn't say its goal was to rush to the combo because that isn't the point of any gotcha type combo's like that or channel fireball or copy-cat it is that you get to play a normal game in which at any time you could just draw the instant win, while your opponent has to assume that you have it unless they know for a matter of fact that you don't. This forces a one sided shutdown of game play which is not healthy to the game and WotC has been rather consistent in banning such combos and I imagine if Copy-cat does well at the PT it will certainly spell its doom in standard (not surprised one bit that they would allow it to persist for a bit as they did the same thing with Caw-Blade during its existence).
It was 10 cards. For someone who claims to have been a Twin player, you're woefully ignorant about it. And I'll bite on your challenge here. RUG Scapeshift's combo only takes up 6 cards in the deck, 4 less than Twin's. So why is that deck not the better combo deck, then?
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
In the 6 months where they overlapped? 1: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10803&d=261794&f=MO
Total top 8s by non-Twin decks running Rending Volley in those 6 months was 7.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Quit dangling this carrot in front of our faces. We'll talk about Jace at the next meeting. We'll discuss color balance for the next announcement.... heard that before.
Is this how we accomplish things? If so, I'll 100% fund somebody in Renton to make an unban SFM sign.
This is from April 15th.
David Ochoa: "Mono-bacon!..."
He says "easy change to the banned list." Not "addition" or "banning." This leaves open the possibility that they may be considering an unban to try to rectify any perceived issues in the format.
I feel that maybe JTMS is fine for the format but that could sky rocket if unbanned. Also, I think they should just leave the banlist as it is t least until. the fall set to see what happens, unless something drastically bad happens
Anyways, no bans is the best thing they could have done. The format is in a good place right now. I wouldn't expect any unbans or bans anytime soon unless something ridiculous gets printed.
It's not even the ex-Twin players that bring it up every time, there are a couple of anti-Twin trolls who come in these threads and verbatim spew the same misinformation every other week. Whether you think the ban was warranted at the time or not is purely opinion, but these people say things that are just factually wrong to exaggerate their case for the Twin ban, and it's pretty tiring.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Would people say the format is healthy if aggro decks were 5% of the meta? If mid-range decks were 5%? Sure, the format has a plethora of aggro and big-mana decks, but mid-range is getting bumped down and control is irrelevant. That's an issue. It's not Eldrazi Winter, but let's stop pretending everything is hunky-dory.
I come to see if I can catch something useful but before I know it the only thing being discussed is the Twin ban and how bad blue is.
Come on guys come up with something original because this is taking the piss.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
you could run 4 Deceivers and 3 Splinter Twins which was the minimal package, the more focused combo versions would run 4/2 split on creatures and 4 of Twin
but you would have known that if you actually played the deck
do you really think what your doing does anything to bolster your claim? it only makes you sound very childish
and RUG scapeshift takes along time to pull off which is why it isn't as good, for some one claims to play magic you don't seem to know much about it
in fairness saying a " easy change" doesn't exclude adding or removing just in some way a change.
it has a higher deck design cost
you have to 5 mountains in play before valakut does anything all you need is Twin and a flash tapper and your golden and can go off T4 without doing anything but hitting your land drops
I mean which is better a combo that only takes 6-10 cards or a combo that demands about 22 cards to set up a early combo kill.. Titanshift is a good combo deck its just that the RG version is better than RUG version most the time since the risk of drawing to many of your mountains and not being able to actually combo off only exists in the RUG version never happens in the RG one, Cryptic Command and remand doesn't really add much to the deck since it already has a natural late game. Not to mention to achieve the same kill speed as a twin deck the Scapeshift deck has to commit to multiple spells to set it up and like many other combo decks will lose to itself because it drew to much prep and no finishers.
did you intentionally choose the less optimal Shift deck as your example or did you not know why the RG one is better?
Actually Condemn is very good against DS it bounces one back to the deck and almost certainly will kill any others they have in play given that they will on resolution gain exactly as much life as the DS had in toughness. Its actually probably a bonkers spell to play in a GP if you expect DS in large numbers. It doesn't hurt that UW Control doesn't care about a aggro player gaining a little life of of it since it will not matter once they take over the game.
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
Yup no changes like I called and couldn't be happier. Modern is fine.
I didn't say it could go in any deck please don't put words in my mouth, the reality is that yes the Twin package 7-10 cards is a super small deck building requirement for a instant win combo.
What other combo deck in modern gets away with only needing to run 10 cards that do the instantly win you the game? Scapeshift has to run about 22 dedicated spots to ensure they can combo off in a reasonable time. Ad Naus 17-18 if your only counting the actual cards that have to be cast for the combo and ignore all of the lotus bloom, pentad prism stuff that helps ensure you can cast your combo earlier if you count the spells that speed it up 30 cards that are dedicated to finding and pulling off the combo.
It really only proves my point Twin always was a combo deck and it was the best combo deck precisely because the combo put such little deck building restraints on the player. 7-10 cards vs 22-30 in other combo decks, this is exactly why Twin was Op'ed like channel fireball before it. you get to have a deck that wins like a ad naus deck or a Storm deck but get to play a tempo deck that doesn't just lose to itself like other combo decks. I beat plenty of people with snapcaster beats because they had to assume I have the combo or lose on the spot, so I get the benefit of a T4 onward instant kill regardless if I have it because the deck already wants to play serum visions and protection spells regardless.
Yes it didn't have flex spots because the combo took up the flex spots it would be as if WotC printed a 2 card combo in Jund colors that could instant win the game in a consistent manner like twin it would find its way into the deck....oh wait they did punishing fire.....which is still way slower than Twin and banned because its a 2 card combo that is incidental to the construction of the deck.
The only versions that were ever down to 4 combo creatures and 3 Twins were oddly built Temur Twin lists. The default UR build was 6 creatures and 4 Twins, and the default Grixis build was 5-6 creatures and 3-4 Twins. Stop lying dude, just because a few people placed in events with 7 combo pieces doesn't mean it was a common choice. The vast majority of lists were 5-6 creatures and 3-4 Twins.
I'm aware that a few people did that, but to try and make it out like that was a common thing in service to your argument is deceitful. The most common configuration was 10 combo pieces, and the second most common was 8, anything other than that was extremely fringe, and if you were being honest in your discussions here you would have said 10 for the combo pieces. It's just another thing in a long line of you lying on these threads, and I'm going to call you out for it every time because I'm not going to just sit around while people spread misinformation.
I'm not making any claims here, you are. I'm just fact checking you when you tell obvious lies.
I'm well aware of why RUG Scapeshift was never as successful as Twin, but your claim was that Twin was the best combo deck because its combo pieces only took up "10" (which isn't what you said, but is the correct number) slots in the deck, so the rest could be a control shell. Well, Scapeshift's combo took up even fewer slots than Twin's, so clearly your claim is incorrect.
*6 Mountains
Your talk of the difference of the blue Scapeshift and Titanshift decks is all irrelevant. The bottom line is that Scapeshift is a combo that requires the card Scapeshift and 7 lands in play. If you want to argue that the ramp spells are combo pieces, I'd be willing to give that to you, though. But then I can bring up Saheeli combo, which is another combo with even fewer pieces than Twin. My point is that Twin wasn't the best combo deck just because its combo took up the fewest slots in the deck. It wasn't even a dedicated combo deck in the first place. It was primarily an aggro-control deck that had a combo finish if it needed it. But we've had this discussion many times before and I don't feel like going over it with you again.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Condemn is very good against Shadow. In terms of getting rid of a Shadow, Path is the best answer, since they can't get it back. Push and Terminate are good, but they have ways to get Shadows back from their graveyards, either with LtLH, Kommand, or Orzhov Charm. Condemn putting it back in the deck is almost as good as Path against Grixis, and arguably better than Push or Terminate against Jund and Esper, as they have to spend a Traverse or Ranger to get it back.
The part that really makes Condemn good, though, is the life gain clause. These decks spend a lot of resources burning themselves down to make the Shadows big, and if you keep giving them life it's difficult for them to get rolling on that plan. You can essentially delay the Shadow deck by several turns with a single Condemn, which for a draw-go control deck is going to put them past the point where they have no chance to overcome your card advantage. And that's not even to mention the huge blowout potential of 2-for-1'ing your opponent if they have 2 Shadows out, or the sweet play Gabe Nassif made where he 3-for-1'd a Grixis Shadow player that attacked with 2 5/5 Shadows and a Gurmag Angler by Condemning the Angler, which subsequently killed both the Shadows too. I definitely think UW Control lists should be running a couple Condemns as additional removal right now.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW