Storm was not even that good when Gitaxian Probe was banned. Storm is good now because WOTC printed Baral, Chief of Compliance, they switched away from Pyromancer Ascension to Gifts Ungiven, and Control decks were trash for 2 of the last 3 years. Storm was a middling, mostly irrelevant, cute Tier 2 deck at the time.
Gitaxian Probe ban announced: Jan 9 2017, effective Jan 20 2017
Aether Revolt release date: Jan 20 2017
I've heard that sets are finalized 6-8 months prior to release. Possible that R&D anticipated Baral will make Storm stronger. So they did not want Storm to have both Baral and Probe at the same time.
Storm was not even that good when Gitaxian Probe was banned. Storm is good now because WOTC printed Baral, Chief of Compliance, they switched away from Pyromancer Ascension to Gifts Ungiven, and Control decks were trash for 2 of the last 3 years. Storm was a middling, mostly irrelevant, cute Tier 2 deck at the time.
Gitaxian Probe ban announced: Jan 9 2017, effective Jan 20 2017
Aether Revolt release date: Jan 20 2017
I've heard that sets are finalized 6-8 months prior to release. Possible that R&D anticipated Baral will make Storm stronger. So they did not want Storm to have both Baral and Probe at the same time.
Doubtful. They also decided to specifically hit multiple small creature aggro decks right as Fatal Push was printed in that very same set. A card that hits basically every single relevant threat that all those decks were playing at the time.
The only preemptive bans they've done (besides the initial list, of which multiple things have come off of) was Dig Through Time, which died for the sins of Treasure Cruise.
Regardless, I'm not saying Probe should (or ever will) come back, just that its ban was not motivated by anything other than the venn diagram intersection of (cards we hate) and (cards that make Infect and DSZ too good). Because ban decisions are generally made between a series of gut feelings and cold, lazy MTGO data analytics, without taking larger deck and meta impacts into consideration.
i mean that is basically the premise of every fast deck ever.
'if you dont stop me im going to win'
At 20 life, 4 lands in play for both players, nothing else on the battlefield, tapping out is not good vs Storm and Twin. That's what I mean when it plays similar.
i mean that is basically the premise of every fast deck ever.
'if you dont stop me im going to win'
At 20 life, 4 lands in play for both players, nothing else on the battlefield, tapping out is not good vs Storm and Twin. That's what I mean when it plays similar.
yeah but the conversation before was about decks forcing players to interact. that specific playstyle of having a 1 turn combo, or a functionally 1 turn combo with instant speed components isnt a unique presentation of that.
so again, storm may have that same aspect as twin; but that isnt what made twin different nor some alleged gatekeeper. instead of 'im going to force you to interact' it was 'im going to interact with your gameplan, pressure you with tempo, AND threaten to combo in 1 turn'.
make no mistake. twins dominant presence was because of its flexibility allotted by a combo with minimal deckbuilding cost, not because of the combo itself. there is a reason it was considered a police deck when storm, infect, kci, burn, living end, or whatever other linear fast decks arent; all of which also threaten to win on or before turn 4. its why there have been more comparisons between humans role in the meta and twin than storm and twin ever had, and its also why twin even comes up in conversations about tempo decks when it wasnt even a tempo deck in its own right.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
instead of 'im going to force you to interact' it was 'im going to interact with your gameplan, pressure you with tempo, AND threaten to combo in 1 turn'.
My opinion on that is that Twin isn't really a tempo deck because its not really doing anything to gain an advantage in any way, board advantage or card advantage (quality or quantity.) There is no back and forth, there is no attrition based warfare. It plays like a combo deck where board advantage is meaningless. That's why I think Twin is not tempo but just a combo-control deck
instead of 'im going to force you to interact' it was 'im going to interact with your gameplan, pressure you with tempo, AND threaten to combo in 1 turn'.
My opinion on that is that Twin isn't really a tempo deck because its not really doing anything to gain an advantage in any way, board advantage or card advantage (quality or quantity.) There is no back and forth, there is no attrition based warfare. It plays like a combo deck where board advantage is meaningless. That's why I think Twin is not tempo but just a combo-control deck
twins plan B was heavily tempo based. when i said pressure with tempo, it was referring to tempo as a metric of game advantage rather than a description of strategy. playing at instant speed, remand, twiddle creatures, chip damage, and burning an opponent out. all of those rely on tempo plays to keep the game state to your advantage, if only temporarily to close the door. flashing in some creatures to tap down lands, remanding a couple of spells, and some burn spells to the dome. you are gonna tell me that isnt tempo? it sure as hell isnt control.
the basis for the deck being 50/50 was that it defied most normal rules of archetypes. it could switch between multiple gameplans relatively seemlessly; which in turn made it incredibly resilient. control-combo-tempo-midrange-bestdeckintheformat.
we just havent seen anything like it since because its such a difficult recipe to replicate.
edit: so what do you guys think of those steamkin/arclight phoenix decks? (monoR and UR)
its probably the only thing ive seen so far that is entirely new out of GRN cards
yeah but the conversation before was about decks forcing players to interact. that specific playstyle of having a 1 turn combo, or a functionally 1 turn combo with instant speed components isnt a unique presentation of that.
I think I know what you're missing.
People's argument about twin and twin-like decks is that they prevent evaluation of risks. 1-turn combo deck means that the evaluation of "can they kill me if I tap out" is "yes" every single turn once they have X mana, X being low.
With burn, your example, I can look at my life total, how many cards are in the burn player's hand, and easily come up with a probability from 0% to 100% about their ability to kill me if I tap out. I can do that no matter how many lands they have, no matter how early or late we are in the game.
With twin, if they have two cards in hand, there is no evaluation function other than the basic starting probabilities of drawing their combo pieces by turn X.
yeah but the conversation before was about decks forcing players to interact. that specific playstyle of having a 1 turn combo, or a functionally 1 turn combo with instant speed components isnt a unique presentation of that.
I think I know what you're missing.
People's argument about twin and twin-like decks is that they prevent evaluation of risks. 1-turn combo deck means that the evaluation of "can they kill me if I tap out" is "yes" every single turn once they have X mana, X being low.
With burn, your example, I can look at my life total, how many cards are in the burn player's hand, and easily come up with a probability from 0% to 100% about their ability to kill me if I tap out. I can do that no matter how many lands they have, no matter how early or late we are in the game.
With twin, if they have two cards in hand, there is no evaluation function other than the basic starting probabilities of drawing their combo pieces by turn X.
fair enough. id attribute this quality to A+B combo decks. gifts storm does a decent imitation of this because a cost reducer + gifts + any open mana almost always leads to a kill; which differs slightly from the critical mass required in other versions.
kci, living end, ad naus, counters company, and im sure a couple other combo decks im not thinking of have this quality to some degree. of not being able to gauge your chances of dying as easily.
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My opinion on that is that Twin isn't really a tempo deck because its not really doing anything to gain an advantage in any way, board advantage or card advantage (quality or quantity.) There is no back and forth, there is no attrition based warfare. It plays like a combo deck where board advantage is meaningless. That's why I think Twin is not tempo but just a combo-control deck
Twin leveraged a mana advantage over their opponent by preventing them from fully utilizing their mana each turn for fear of being comboed out, while most of their plays were instant speed, so they could play them out on their opponent's end step. That huge discrepancy in mana efficiency that the deck forced is what enabled it to win tempo games, even though its actual tempo core was bad.
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Modern 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
People's argument about twin and twin-like decks is that they prevent evaluation of risks. 1-turn combo deck means that the evaluation of "can they kill me if I tap out" is "yes" every single turn once they have X mana, X being low.
With twin, if they have two cards in hand, there is no evaluation function other than the basic starting probabilities of drawing their combo pieces by turn X.
That's not quite accurate. Yes, the answer to "Could they possibly kill me?" if they have 3 open mana and 2 cards in hand is always yes, but that's not the right question to ask against Twin. The question was whether or not you could afford to play around the combo. If you could, you sat back and represented removal, even if you didn't actually have it. If you couldn't, there were often spots where it was correct to tap out and put them under a clock, risking losing the game if you read them incorrectly. This was why discard spells were so good against Twin, Jund often was able to tap out knowing they weren't going to die because they had information on the Twin player's hand.
And really, this is the same thing that Storm does these days. Do you hold up your Fatal Push going into your Storm opponent's third turn, or do you play out your Goyf to put them under a clock? Some number of times you'll play your Goyf, and they'll untap, play out Baral and a ritual and go off and kill you.
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Modern 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
People's argument about twin and twin-like decks is that they prevent evaluation of risks. 1-turn combo deck means that the evaluation of "can they kill me if I tap out" is "yes" every single turn once they have X mana, X being low.
With twin, if they have two cards in hand, there is no evaluation function other than the basic starting probabilities of drawing their combo pieces by turn X.
That's not quite accurate. Yes, the answer to "Could they possibly kill me?" if they have 3 open mana and 2 cards in hand is always yes, but that's not the right question to ask against Twin. The question was whether or not you could afford to play around the combo. If you could, you sat back and represented removal, even if you didn't actually have it. If you couldn't, there were often spots where it was correct to tap out and put them under a clock, risking losing the game if you read them incorrectly. This was why discard spells were so good against Twin, Jund often was able to tap out knowing they weren't going to die because they had information on the Twin player's hand.
As someone who played a lot of Twin, I lost many games and matches to aggressive opponents while I simply did not have the combo in hand in time. Many aggressive decks who simply chose to ignore the combo and try to kill me were fairly effective many of the times because the combo itself was not nearly as reliable as people think they remember it to be, and the actual control tools available in UR were (and still are) very poor at dealing with fast aggressive decks. Toss in any single piece of disruption (discard, counter, removal) and that makes it even worse for the Twin player.
Honestly, it seems like much of the salt people hold against Twin is the fact that a lot of the times it was able to punish poor plays and beat up on bad decks. Nothing more nothing less.
I've been playing a lot of Arena, so bad decks, instead of Modern 'real' decks, and the difference between playing with and against jank vs a real deck is massive.
I can appreciate people not having the stomach for playing into Twin over and over a bit more now.
I'm always amazed at how this thread always circles itself back to Twin. With modern seeing a resurgence of GB/x Midrange, UW control being viable, and a very diverse meta; This thread always asks "Why is twin still banned"?
I get it, players want a viable tempo deck. UR wizards is close, the new steam engine deck is beginning to see more play, and yet, ya'll still talk about twin. Twin is a combo/control deck. If you want a delver like deck, GDS is as close as we get atm.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
Notice how dead this thread is between Twin discussion? Its the only topic of relevance, until something is busted.
I've mentioned if Creeping Chill is making waves anywhere but online.
I mentioned the rise of the Steam-Kin deck, we saw a few posts talking about Frenzy, but in the end it will always come back to one thing, because only one thing is missing in Modern.
Twin, and the archetype which was uniquely a Modern pillar (edit: Correction, a poor man's version had to be banned out of Standard because of the ineptitude of their testing team, Copy Cat.)
EDIT x 2: And GDS as a comparison to Twin is insulting. Its like banning Tron and telling people to go play Amulet.
Notice how dead this thread is between Twin discussion? Its the only topic of relevance, until something is busted.
Yep, Modern's been really good for a while now, so there's not a whole lot of discussion to be had other than the cards some of us would like to see unbanned. The most popular of those is easily SFM and Twin.
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Modern 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
I always go back to a quote from Brian Kibler when it comes to bannings and unbannings:
"This is the problem with eternal formats. New interactions are going to keep coming up, new powerful things are going to keep happening If you're response is 'we're going to get rid of that one', then you are going to lose the point of having an eternal format. In Modern, people can't play the decks they've put together that they like and they want to play, which is really a lot of the appeal of the format to a lot of people."
7:13 Source
While I personally don't like Splinter Twin decks at all, I think it falls under the "we're going to get rid of that one" category. There's a huge difference in trying to create the "perfect" format where its the most enjoyable, interactive, balanced, and interesting on one hand, and letting people play with all the cards on the other hand.
So the question is: what is the point of an eternal format? People like Jeff Hoogland are advocates against "bad design/ feels bad" cards like Thoughtseize, Blood Moon, etc. Most people would agree with him. I agree with him. This is how most competitive video games are handled. Games like League of Legends or Dota have patches every few weeks. They rework entire characters so they add more interesting abilities and better counter play. They essentially get rid of the "toxic/ feels bad" mechanics all the time.
However, we aren't a video game like them. We are a card game that exists in paper and digital realms. So when it comes to banning cards, I have always believed that bannings needs to come out of necessity rather than "good game design vs bad game design." We can argue cards like Splinter Twin or Ancient Stirrings are bad game design or promote bad gameplay all day, but are they in oppressive decks? Do they push out entire archtypes or have an unreasonable meta share percentage? If they don't, then they shouldn't be on the banned list.
As much as I hate to say it, I'd liek to see Twin unbanned. If it proves to be too oppressive then so be it, ban it again. The reasons for a lot of cards on the list are outdated (Ponder/ Preordain original reasons for example). Modern is extremely different than it was just a year or two ago
I'm always amazed at how this thread always circles itself back to Twin. With modern seeing a resurgence of GB/x Midrange, UW control being viable, and a very diverse meta; This thread always asks "Why is twin still banned"?
Almost all Twin discussion in this thread originates from a small group of vocal Twin defenders who have defended that card since 2016. When the format appears unhealthy, they bring up Twin as a way to fix it, and/or use that lack of health as a justification to bring Twin back because other things are powerful too. When the format appears healthy, they also bring up Twin as a natural addition to a diverse Modern. The fact that their argument remains unchanged even as the conditions of Modern change makes me very suspicious. I do not believe many of these pro-Twin arguments actually consider the format, Wizards' unbanning trends, other players, etc. I think they are made almost purely, or entirely, out of personal preference shared by Twin pilots in the face of any and all evidence to the contrary.
Notice how dead this thread is between Twin discussion? Its the only topic of relevance, until something is busted.
I've mentioned if Creeping Chill is making waves anywhere but online.
I mentioned the rise of the Steam-Kin deck, we saw a few posts talking about Frenzy, but in the end it will always come back to one thing, because only one thing is missing in Modern.
That is an extremely generous interpretation of why the thread returns to Twin. The overwhelming majority of threads on this forum exist without any Twin discussion. The overwhelming majority of Reddit threads exist without Twin discussion. I bet if we went through Modern articles in the past 12 months, we'd also see the overwhelming majority of them never mention the word "Twin" once. It's not a Modern issue, it's not a health issue, it's not a popular issue. Twin doesn't even win the unbanning polls here or on Reddit, which is the surest time for the argument to land!
I think a much more accurate explanation is that a few users, that are disproportionately vocal and participatory in this thread, want to play Twin. As such, they continue to bring the thread back to Twin in subtle and less subtle ways. This is most noticeable in the shifting arguments in favor of Twin's unbanning. The most recent argument in the past few pages appears to have something to do with Modern having an alleged lack of blue-based Snapcaster/Bolt Tempo decks that play threats before disrupting an opponent/protecting the threat. Never mind that Twin doesn't actually do this and is only a tempo deck in some roundabout way (despite GDS not being tempo in a comparable roundabout way?). This reminds me of the same shifting arguments that Twin players made in 2017 and 2018 around a lack of viable top-tier blue decks. Then we got those decks and the argument shifted again.
I get it. A few people will never be happy with Modern until Twin is unbanned. That's all well and good but those posters need to a) stop regressing this thread to Twin talk every few weeks, b) stop framing it as a defining Modern-wide issue (e.g. "only one thing is missing in Modern.), c) stop using immaterial arguments to defend unbanning Twin (e.g. "Tron is okay, lantern is okay, storm is okay, but twin is not okay? LOL"), and d) stop changing the arguments in favor of unbanning Twin as the format satisfies the requirements of old arguments.
I think they are made almost purely, or entirely, out of personal preference shared by Twin pilots in the face of any and all evidence to the contrary.
As someone who was banned twice for making lengthy and intricate defenses for both the unjust banning and multiple reasons why it should be unbanned, backed by multitudes of numbers as well as general meta analysis, I would like to personally say that you are welcome to have that opinion. It's not accurate, and I think it's somewhat insulting that you continue to hold this view, but you're welcome to hold it.
Also, why don't you address those who simply hate the deck and dance in its demise? Those who make blatantly false or exaggerated claims? Those who purposely provoke responses from "the defenders." FFS, I'd rather have a ban on Twin talk again than not be able to respond to ridiculous statements without berating and eye rolling.
I think they are made almost purely, or entirely, out of personal preference shared by Twin pilots in the face of any and all evidence to the contrary.
As someone who was banned twice for making lengthy and intricate defenses for both the unjust banning and multiple reasons why it should be unbanned, backed by multitudes of numbers as well as general meta analysis, I would like to personally say that you are welcome to have that opinion. It's not accurate, and I think it's somewhat insulting that you continue to hold this view, but you're welcome to hold it.
Also, why don't you address those who simply hate the deck and dance in its demise? Those who make blatantly false or exaggerated claims? Those who purposely provoke responses from "the defenders." FFS, I'd rather have a ban on Twin talk again than not be able to respond to ridiculous statements without berating and eye rolling.
Constantly defending the deck only serves to create more discussion of people attacking it though. Look at the difference between how Twin and Pod get handled by the community.
I'm always amazed at how this thread always circles itself back to Twin. With modern seeing a resurgence of GB/x Midrange, UW control being viable, and a very diverse meta; This thread always asks "Why is twin still banned"?
Almost all Twin discussion in this thread originates from a small group of vocal Twin defenders who have defended that card since 2016. When the format appears unhealthy, they bring up Twin as a way to fix it, and/or use that lack of health as a justification to bring Twin back because other things are powerful too. When the format appears healthy, they also bring up Twin as a natural addition to a diverse Modern. The fact that their argument remains unchanged even as the conditions of Modern change makes me very suspicious. I do not believe many of these pro-Twin arguments actually consider the format, Wizards' unbanning trends, other players, etc. I think they are made almost purely, or entirely, out of personal preference shared by Twin pilots in the face of any and all evidence to the contrary.
....
That is an extremely generous interpretation of why the thread returns to Twin. The overwhelming majority of threads on this forum exist without any Twin discussion. The overwhelming majority of Reddit threads exist without Twin discussion. I bet if we went through Modern articles in the past 12 months, we'd also see the overwhelming majority of them never mention the word "Twin" once. It's not a Modern issue, it's not a health issue, it's not a popular issue. Twin doesn't even win the unbanning polls here or on Reddit, which is the surest time for the argument to land!
I dont even care anymore. The arguments against Twin are false. The only one that stands is 'well its banned, so it stays that way'. We both know there is no meaningful way to argue for its release. We both know all the arguments have been made. We both know there are those who will defend it, and those who will hate it, and those positions are unlikely to shift.
Its like I said in that private group chat months ago. I simply do not care for arguments put against it. They are invalid, and have been proven as such.
Ban talk about Twin, I simply dont care.
Call out 'twin defenders' while leaving 'twin attackers' untouched, unmentioned, and free to continue. I simply dont care.
In the end, the deck died for dubious reasons, and remains dead for no reason at all. Agree, disagree, I simply dont care.
I'd have to go back and look, but at this point I do not believe there is a single meaningful argument for it to remain banned, but its irrelevant because you and I both know damn well that it wont be unbanned by any discussion here, and we dont have the data to make a case for it regardless.
Ban discussion on Twin. Until something breaks the format (I'm betting its Creeping Chill) its irrelevant anyway and there is literally nothing to discuss in the 'State of Modern' its diverse, it has archetype representation across (nearly) the entire spectrum of possible deck types, and there is a deck for (mostly) everyone.
Ban discussion on Twin, so this thread can slow to a trickle.
Twin usually comes up because its one fo the few cards that can actually be discussed when it comes to unbannings. We were talking about archtypes that exist and dont exist, and tempo + combo-control was brought up
Gitaxian Probe ban announced: Jan 9 2017, effective Jan 20 2017
Aether Revolt release date: Jan 20 2017
I've heard that sets are finalized 6-8 months prior to release. Possible that R&D anticipated Baral will make Storm stronger. So they did not want Storm to have both Baral and Probe at the same time.
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Doubtful. They also decided to specifically hit multiple small creature aggro decks right as Fatal Push was printed in that very same set. A card that hits basically every single relevant threat that all those decks were playing at the time.
The only preemptive bans they've done (besides the initial list, of which multiple things have come off of) was Dig Through Time, which died for the sins of Treasure Cruise.
Regardless, I'm not saying Probe should (or ever will) come back, just that its ban was not motivated by anything other than the venn diagram intersection of (cards we hate) and (cards that make Infect and DSZ too good). Because ban decisions are generally made between a series of gut feelings and cold, lazy MTGO data analytics, without taking larger deck and meta impacts into consideration.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
At 20 life, 4 lands in play for both players, nothing else on the battlefield, tapping out is not good vs Storm and Twin. That's what I mean when it plays similar.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Exactly this.
Spirits
so again, storm may have that same aspect as twin; but that isnt what made twin different nor some alleged gatekeeper. instead of 'im going to force you to interact' it was 'im going to interact with your gameplan, pressure you with tempo, AND threaten to combo in 1 turn'.
make no mistake. twins dominant presence was because of its flexibility allotted by a combo with minimal deckbuilding cost, not because of the combo itself. there is a reason it was considered a police deck when storm, infect, kci, burn, living end, or whatever other linear fast decks arent; all of which also threaten to win on or before turn 4. its why there have been more comparisons between humans role in the meta and twin than storm and twin ever had, and its also why twin even comes up in conversations about tempo decks when it wasnt even a tempo deck in its own right.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)My opinion on that is that Twin isn't really a tempo deck because its not really doing anything to gain an advantage in any way, board advantage or card advantage (quality or quantity.) There is no back and forth, there is no attrition based warfare. It plays like a combo deck where board advantage is meaningless. That's why I think Twin is not tempo but just a combo-control deck
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Spirits
twins plan B was heavily tempo based. when i said pressure with tempo, it was referring to tempo as a metric of game advantage rather than a description of strategy. playing at instant speed, remand, twiddle creatures, chip damage, and burning an opponent out. all of those rely on tempo plays to keep the game state to your advantage, if only temporarily to close the door. flashing in some creatures to tap down lands, remanding a couple of spells, and some burn spells to the dome. you are gonna tell me that isnt tempo? it sure as hell isnt control.
the basis for the deck being 50/50 was that it defied most normal rules of archetypes. it could switch between multiple gameplans relatively seemlessly; which in turn made it incredibly resilient. control-combo-tempo-midrange-bestdeckintheformat.
we just havent seen anything like it since because its such a difficult recipe to replicate.
edit: so what do you guys think of those steamkin/arclight phoenix decks? (monoR and UR)
its probably the only thing ive seen so far that is entirely new out of GRN cards
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I think I know what you're missing.
People's argument about twin and twin-like decks is that they prevent evaluation of risks. 1-turn combo deck means that the evaluation of "can they kill me if I tap out" is "yes" every single turn once they have X mana, X being low.
With burn, your example, I can look at my life total, how many cards are in the burn player's hand, and easily come up with a probability from 0% to 100% about their ability to kill me if I tap out. I can do that no matter how many lands they have, no matter how early or late we are in the game.
With twin, if they have two cards in hand, there is no evaluation function other than the basic starting probabilities of drawing their combo pieces by turn X.
fair enough. id attribute this quality to A+B combo decks. gifts storm does a decent imitation of this because a cost reducer + gifts + any open mana almost always leads to a kill; which differs slightly from the critical mass required in other versions.
kci, living end, ad naus, counters company, and im sure a couple other combo decks im not thinking of have this quality to some degree. of not being able to gauge your chances of dying as easily.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Its fun. Not my style, but fun. I think Risk Factor and Arclight may have enough power to do their own thing outside the steamy boi romance decks.
Also for those who like polls, this is some results from an earlier one. Modern remains king.
https://twitter.com/bazardebagda/status/1052266202268147712
Spirits
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
And really, this is the same thing that Storm does these days. Do you hold up your Fatal Push going into your Storm opponent's third turn, or do you play out your Goyf to put them under a clock? Some number of times you'll play your Goyf, and they'll untap, play out Baral and a ritual and go off and kill you.
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
As someone who played a lot of Twin, I lost many games and matches to aggressive opponents while I simply did not have the combo in hand in time. Many aggressive decks who simply chose to ignore the combo and try to kill me were fairly effective many of the times because the combo itself was not nearly as reliable as people think they remember it to be, and the actual control tools available in UR were (and still are) very poor at dealing with fast aggressive decks. Toss in any single piece of disruption (discard, counter, removal) and that makes it even worse for the Twin player.
Honestly, it seems like much of the salt people hold against Twin is the fact that a lot of the times it was able to punish poor plays and beat up on bad decks. Nothing more nothing less.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I can appreciate people not having the stomach for playing into Twin over and over a bit more now.
Spirits
I get it, players want a viable tempo deck. UR wizards is close, the new steam engine deck is beginning to see more play, and yet, ya'll still talk about twin. Twin is a combo/control deck. If you want a delver like deck, GDS is as close as we get atm.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
I've mentioned if Creeping Chill is making waves anywhere but online.
I mentioned the rise of the Steam-Kin deck, we saw a few posts talking about Frenzy, but in the end it will always come back to one thing, because only one thing is missing in Modern.
Twin, and the archetype which was uniquely a Modern pillar (edit: Correction, a poor man's version had to be banned out of Standard because of the ineptitude of their testing team, Copy Cat.)
EDIT x 2: And GDS as a comparison to Twin is insulting. Its like banning Tron and telling people to go play Amulet.
Spirits
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
Tron is okay, lantern is okay, storm is okay, but twin is not okay? LOL
While I personally don't like Splinter Twin decks at all, I think it falls under the "we're going to get rid of that one" category. There's a huge difference in trying to create the "perfect" format where its the most enjoyable, interactive, balanced, and interesting on one hand, and letting people play with all the cards on the other hand.
So the question is: what is the point of an eternal format? People like Jeff Hoogland are advocates against "bad design/ feels bad" cards like Thoughtseize, Blood Moon, etc. Most people would agree with him. I agree with him. This is how most competitive video games are handled. Games like League of Legends or Dota have patches every few weeks. They rework entire characters so they add more interesting abilities and better counter play. They essentially get rid of the "toxic/ feels bad" mechanics all the time.
However, we aren't a video game like them. We are a card game that exists in paper and digital realms. So when it comes to banning cards, I have always believed that bannings needs to come out of necessity rather than "good game design vs bad game design." We can argue cards like Splinter Twin or Ancient Stirrings are bad game design or promote bad gameplay all day, but are they in oppressive decks? Do they push out entire archtypes or have an unreasonable meta share percentage? If they don't, then they shouldn't be on the banned list.
As much as I hate to say it, I'd liek to see Twin unbanned. If it proves to be too oppressive then so be it, ban it again. The reasons for a lot of cards on the list are outdated (Ponder/ Preordain original reasons for example). Modern is extremely different than it was just a year or two ago
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Almost all Twin discussion in this thread originates from a small group of vocal Twin defenders who have defended that card since 2016. When the format appears unhealthy, they bring up Twin as a way to fix it, and/or use that lack of health as a justification to bring Twin back because other things are powerful too. When the format appears healthy, they also bring up Twin as a natural addition to a diverse Modern. The fact that their argument remains unchanged even as the conditions of Modern change makes me very suspicious. I do not believe many of these pro-Twin arguments actually consider the format, Wizards' unbanning trends, other players, etc. I think they are made almost purely, or entirely, out of personal preference shared by Twin pilots in the face of any and all evidence to the contrary.
That is an extremely generous interpretation of why the thread returns to Twin. The overwhelming majority of threads on this forum exist without any Twin discussion. The overwhelming majority of Reddit threads exist without Twin discussion. I bet if we went through Modern articles in the past 12 months, we'd also see the overwhelming majority of them never mention the word "Twin" once. It's not a Modern issue, it's not a health issue, it's not a popular issue. Twin doesn't even win the unbanning polls here or on Reddit, which is the surest time for the argument to land!
I think a much more accurate explanation is that a few users, that are disproportionately vocal and participatory in this thread, want to play Twin. As such, they continue to bring the thread back to Twin in subtle and less subtle ways. This is most noticeable in the shifting arguments in favor of Twin's unbanning. The most recent argument in the past few pages appears to have something to do with Modern having an alleged lack of blue-based Snapcaster/Bolt Tempo decks that play threats before disrupting an opponent/protecting the threat. Never mind that Twin doesn't actually do this and is only a tempo deck in some roundabout way (despite GDS not being tempo in a comparable roundabout way?). This reminds me of the same shifting arguments that Twin players made in 2017 and 2018 around a lack of viable top-tier blue decks. Then we got those decks and the argument shifted again.
I get it. A few people will never be happy with Modern until Twin is unbanned. That's all well and good but those posters need to a) stop regressing this thread to Twin talk every few weeks, b) stop framing it as a defining Modern-wide issue (e.g. "only one thing is missing in Modern.), c) stop using immaterial arguments to defend unbanning Twin (e.g. "Tron is okay, lantern is okay, storm is okay, but twin is not okay? LOL"), and d) stop changing the arguments in favor of unbanning Twin as the format satisfies the requirements of old arguments.
As someone who was banned twice for making lengthy and intricate defenses for both the unjust banning and multiple reasons why it should be unbanned, backed by multitudes of numbers as well as general meta analysis, I would like to personally say that you are welcome to have that opinion. It's not accurate, and I think it's somewhat insulting that you continue to hold this view, but you're welcome to hold it.
Also, why don't you address those who simply hate the deck and dance in its demise? Those who make blatantly false or exaggerated claims? Those who purposely provoke responses from "the defenders." FFS, I'd rather have a ban on Twin talk again than not be able to respond to ridiculous statements without berating and eye rolling.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Constantly defending the deck only serves to create more discussion of people attacking it though. Look at the difference between how Twin and Pod get handled by the community.
I dont even care anymore. The arguments against Twin are false. The only one that stands is 'well its banned, so it stays that way'. We both know there is no meaningful way to argue for its release. We both know all the arguments have been made. We both know there are those who will defend it, and those who will hate it, and those positions are unlikely to shift.
Its like I said in that private group chat months ago. I simply do not care for arguments put against it. They are invalid, and have been proven as such.
Ban talk about Twin, I simply dont care.
Call out 'twin defenders' while leaving 'twin attackers' untouched, unmentioned, and free to continue. I simply dont care.
In the end, the deck died for dubious reasons, and remains dead for no reason at all. Agree, disagree, I simply dont care.
I'd have to go back and look, but at this point I do not believe there is a single meaningful argument for it to remain banned, but its irrelevant because you and I both know damn well that it wont be unbanned by any discussion here, and we dont have the data to make a case for it regardless.
Ban discussion on Twin. Until something breaks the format (I'm betting its Creeping Chill) its irrelevant anyway and there is literally nothing to discuss in the 'State of Modern' its diverse, it has archetype representation across (nearly) the entire spectrum of possible deck types, and there is a deck for (mostly) everyone.
Ban discussion on Twin, so this thread can slow to a trickle.
Spirits
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]