great, so we are taking twin, a deck notorious for defying matchup conventions (it wouldnt have been considered 50/50 otherwise), and are just transplanting it into the current meta which happens to include many 'new' decks. disregarding any considerations for what updated lists would look like across multiple versions; let alone the responses other decks would employ.
hardly compelling evidence.
dont get me wrong, i generally agree that modern in its current form could safely absorb twin. however a whole lot of conjecture and speculation just isnt going to amount to much, especially considering how conservative wizards is. at the end of the day wizards would have to go out on a limb. on an unban decision? yeah, i wont hold my breath.
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great, so we are taking twin, a deck notorious for defying matchup conventions (it wouldnt have been considered 50/50 otherwise), and are just transplanting it into the current meta which happens to include many 'new' decks. disregarding any considerations for what updated lists would look like across multiple versions; let alone the responses other decks would employ.
hardly compelling evidence.
dont get me wrong, i generally agree that modern in its current form could safely absorb twin. however a whole lot of conjecture and speculation just isnt going to amount to much, especially considering how conservative wizards is. at the end of the day wizards would have to go out on a limb. on an unban decision? yeah, i wont hold my breath.
Come on dude, there's nothing going on in Modern right now, I'm bored, lol. Just trying have some fun conversation
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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
Most busted deck in NBL Modern is Eldrazi, and it's not very close. That deck completely dominated the SCG NBL Modern tournament they did. Next best thing was Dark Depths. Those two decks were 19 out of the top 25 of the tournament.
Ah, I guess Eldrazi Winter is indeed very cold.....
Most busted deck in NBL Modern is Eldrazi, and it's not very close. That deck completely dominated the SCG NBL Modern tournament they did. Next best thing was Dark Depths. Those two decks were 19 out of the top 25 of the tournament.
And here we see a prime example from somebody, how has no freaking clue about NBL Modern.
Edrazi is good (Tier 1.5 if I would need to rate it), but not busted. Than why did people play it? Cause it was OBVIOUS good and it was tested recently in Modern. Both UR Delver as Miracles as Tezzerator just gumpa stomps it, heck even Storm is quite decent against it (but when they have a double Chalice draw, than it gets more iffy).
Sure, slamming 4/4 Thoughseize on turn 2 is good, but the deck has a real threat density problem, just 10 real threats (on average) is a real problem in a format, which just runs rampant with either value chains (TC + Skullclamp, which btw just got with Steam Kin a new toy to play around) or "Mass removal" (Terminus, Wrath, Bridge) or have just bigger creatures (yes, also quite common to have 5/6 or even bigger Goyfs in that format).
The deck is just to clunky to say it this way to be broken in NBL.
And yes, NBL is fun but degenerate format
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
And here we see a prime example from somebody, how has no freaking clue about NBL Modern.
Edrazi is good (Tier 1.5 if I would need to rate it), but not busted. Than why did people play it? Cause it was OBVIOUS good and it was tested recently in Modern. Both UR Delver as Miracles as Tezzerator just gumpa stomps it, heck even Storm is quite decent against it (but when they have a double Chalice draw, than it gets more iffy).
Sure, slamming 4/4 Thoughseize on turn 2 is good, but the deck has a real threat density problem, just 10 real threats (on average) is a real problem in a format, which just runs rampant with either value chains (TC + Skullclamp, which btw just got with Steam Kin a new toy to play around) or "Mass removal" (Terminus, Wrath, Bridge) or have just bigger creatures (yes, also quite common to have 5/6 or even bigger Goyfs in that format).
The deck is just to clunky to say it this way to be broken in NBL.
If Eldrazi was only tier 1.5 in NBL Modern, people playing the actual best decks would have beaten it, and it wouldn't have put 13 copies into the top 25. This was by far the biggest NBL Modern tournament ever held, so these results carry more weight than whatever smaller tournaments you're used to.
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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
One tournament is not enough to make any kind of definitive assertion about a format and this is particularly true in what would essentially be the first tournament of a tournaments existence. How often does the first weekend of a sets release look the meta halfway through? Rarely. People would have played the foil to Eldrazi at the next tournament and so on until we had a real meta, but since it's not going to be a real format it doesn't really matter much I suppose.
great, so we are taking twin, a deck notorious for defying matchup conventions (it wouldnt have been considered 50/50 otherwise), and are just transplanting it into the current meta which happens to include many 'new' decks. disregarding any considerations for what updated lists would look like across multiple versions; let alone the responses other decks would employ.
hardly compelling evidence.
dont get me wrong, i generally agree that modern in its current form could safely absorb twin. however a whole lot of conjecture and speculation just isnt going to amount to much, especially considering how conservative wizards is. at the end of the day wizards would have to go out on a limb. on an unban decision? yeah, i wont hold my breath.
Come on dude, there's nothing going on in Modern right now, I'm bored, lol. Just trying have some fun conversation
fair enough. its not like what you were talking about is completely unreasonable, just so many pitfalls with so many unknowns.
for me i look at the top decks right now and seriously wonder if twin could even hang with them. then i remember my experiences playing the deck, when i always believed it played out in matchups better than on paper. only later on did i find out that this was supported by collected data.
i do think its worth considering what twin decks would look like today. its just assumed UR would be it with a few cards swapped around. i think thats worth challenging. for one, twin would be looking to beat different decks. granted i wouldnt expect a huge departure from past builds like you might if you were building some nu-pod deck.
the one thing we know for certain that is in twins favor is that wizards cares about unbanned cards slotting into top decks, the creation of new decks, and revitalizing less seen or struggling play patterns. twin checks all those boxes.
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@tronix, It is speculation. Nobody denied that. Just a back and fourth with our opinions, about what would the possible twin matchups look right now.
In other words, feel free to think we are wrong on those numbers, or feel free to tell us your opinion about those.
As past Twin players though, I don't feel we are totally wide off the mark regarding those numbers.
I think this is actually a good reason to unban it. Let the playerbase test it. Most cards on the banned list we don't need to test, but usual suspects that are talked about on this forum (GSZ, SFM) are not cut and dry cases and could make Modern more fun.
Explain please. Are you playing Arena? The daily system hasnt punished me at all and I've done nothing but play the GW Enchant/Pump deck for 2 days.
If that was Burn, or Storm, or ...whatever, what difference does it make?
The game fixes the draws after a certain point. The trouble is that I cant figure out if it is more based on total wins or using the same deck. I've been watching live streams of multiple players and have seen this happen across the board with the more successful ones, which is why I am not playing it. I hate that kind of underhanded call of duty manipulation of the experience even if it does make it more fun for the masses.
The problem with spotting it is that you have to have played the game via mtgo or done a lot of paper play to catch it.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Explain please. Are you playing Arena? The daily system hasnt punished me at all and I've done nothing but play the GW Enchant/Pump deck for 2 days.
If that was Burn, or Storm, or ...whatever, what difference does it make?
The game fixes the draws after a certain point. The trouble is that I cant figure out if it is more based on total wins or using the same deck. I've been watching live streams of multiple players and have seen this happen across the board with the more successful ones, which is why I am not playing it. I hate that kind of underhanded call of duty manipulation of the experience even if it does make it more fun for the masses.
The problem with spotting it is that you have to have played the game via mtgo or done a lot of paper play to catch it.
This seems spurious until proven by some actual numbers. Anecdotally, I can say I have had as much MTG misfortune in Arena as I have in MTGO. This includes mana flood, screw, bad mulligans, strings of bad topdecks, etc.
Re: Twin effect on diversity
I don't think the suggested approach is a good one at assessing Twin's impact on current diversity. First off, the users currently assessing it are making historical errors, let alone present ones. They aren't even accurately representing Twin's win rate against decks in 2015. GK is saying Burn is favored vs. Twin, but UR Twin was 50/50 vs. Burn in 2015. Wraith said BGx was "always a rough matchup" but it was actually 49/51 for Jund and 51/49 for Abzan. If people trying this method are wrong on the known 2015 win rates, they are almost definitely wrong on the unknown 2018 matchups.
Second, there are too many shifts that could happen which are impossible to predict. We don't know what Twin looks like post JTMS/AV/Opt/Search/Teferi/etc. I know a few Twin users claim that stuff like Push/Trophy would check whatever Twin was doing, but we simply have no idea how Grixis Twin adopts Push, UR Twin adopts those new tools, Jeskai Twin adopts Teferi, etc. There are too many unknowns.
I think a much better method is to look at the 2015 decks that were around alongside Twin and classify them by type. Then we can see what individual/types of decks were held back or empowered by Twin's presence. Then we can look at 2018 and assess decks currently played, comparing to 2015 and seeing what may be held back. For instance, Delver decks were big in 2015 and I don't think it was just due to Probe; that deck had a strong Twin matchup. Maybe such decks would return. But stuff like Dredge and H1 would almost definitely be a lot worse, as those kinds of decks were absent in the Twin days. We'd also see a lot of random blue decks like UR Pyromancer, Blue Moon, and BtL Scapeshift probably coalesce towards Twin. At least this method compares actual decks to actual decks, rather than hypothetically (mis)assessing matchups for unknown 75 card lists.
Yeah I dont buy that Arena is 'fixed' at all. I've had games where I draw land after land after land after land, and I've had games where I curve out. Thats just Magic.
Its like the people who claim they are forcefully 'held back' in Overwatch by a forced 50/50 win/loss ratio.
We don't know what Twin looks like post JTMS/AV/Opt/Search/Teferi/etc.
Opt does not find combo pieces as good or reliably as Serum Visions. Ancestral Vision is complete trash that nobody is playing in any deck. I don't see Twin miraculously picking it up. Search for Azcanta is good on the face side, but the back half can't find the mostimportant pieces. Breach Moon never played Search for that very reason. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria is... cute? I guess? It would be nothing more than a different 5 mana win con for slow grindy games (is it any better/worse than Keranos, God of Storms?), while forcing 3 colors and weakening the Blood Moon game (or removing it entirely). Jace, the Mind Sculptor is notoriously bad without a clear boardstate, something that Twin has notoriously been really, really awful at. Again, helps slow grindy matches, and is actively worse than Jace, Architect of Thought in go-wide creature matches (of which there are MANY among top decks).
And as for your Grixis, splashing for Fatal Push, it's again removing two of the strongest plays Twin can make: clean manabase and Blood Moon. Maybe the trade off is worth it? Maybe it's not. Blood Moon gets you free wins. Fatal push might keep you from dying.
The long and short of it is I'm sure a number of people will try out dozens of cute new things to try and "next level" the Twin deck and then realize that most of them aren't any better than a core from 3 years ago. And the swaps they do make will either be for a minimal or lateral gain.
But then again, we have people believing that this was a hellish unstoppable boogyman that won everything and oppressed all other decks out of the format, so it's tough to contend with hypotheticals when people can't even agree on reality.
Yeah I dont buy that Arena is 'fixed' at all. I've had games where I draw land after land after land after land, and I've had games where I curve out. Thats just Magic.
Its like the people who claim they are forcefully 'held back' in Overwatch by a forced 50/50 win/loss ratio.
yeah my experience with arena so far has had a ton of bad draws. i certainly havent gotten the sense that the RNG is different. claims otherwise would need some serious data to corroborate, like analyzing 10,000+ games.
also, any proper matchmaking system should be keeping your win rate at about even. if those overwatch players are referring to fixing in-game mechanics to sway results. well...they are stupid.
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Yeah I dont buy that Arena is 'fixed' at all. I've had games where I draw land after land after land after land, and I've had games where I curve out. Thats just Magic.
Its like the people who claim they are forcefully 'held back' in Overwatch by a forced 50/50 win/loss ratio.
yeah my experience with arena so far has had a ton of bad draws. i certainly havent gotten the sense that the RNG is different. claims otherwise would need some serious data to corroborate, like analyzing 10,000+ games.
also, any proper matchmaking system should be keeping your win rate at about even. if those overwatch players are referring to fixing in-game mechanics to sway results. well...they are stupid.
They are, they are convinced that because a 50/50 is the ideal, the game prevents them from ranking up. The fact they cannot understand that its their skill that has reached its limit, has provided me with many years of laughs.
And here we see a prime example from somebody, how has no freaking clue about NBL Modern.
Edrazi is good (Tier 1.5 if I would need to rate it), but not busted. Than why did people play it? Cause it was OBVIOUS good and it was tested recently in Modern. Both UR Delver as Miracles as Tezzerator just gumpa stomps it, heck even Storm is quite decent against it (but when they have a double Chalice draw, than it gets more iffy).
Sure, slamming 4/4 Thoughseize on turn 2 is good, but the deck has a real threat density problem, just 10 real threats (on average) is a real problem in a format, which just runs rampant with either value chains (TC + Skullclamp, which btw just got with Steam Kin a new toy to play around) or "Mass removal" (Terminus, Wrath, Bridge) or have just bigger creatures (yes, also quite common to have 5/6 or even bigger Goyfs in that format).
The deck is just to clunky to say it this way to be broken in NBL.
If Eldrazi was only tier 1.5 in NBL Modern, people playing the actual best decks would have beaten it, and it wouldn't have put 13 copies into the top 25. This was by far the biggest NBL Modern tournament ever held, so these results carry more weight than whatever smaller tournaments you're used to.
Actually, this a great example of why data analysis is important. The meta in SCG Roanoke was kind of inbred. Eldrazi stompy made up almost 40% of the day 1 decks, IIRC. If you look at the rate of top 25's of decklists with more than 2 copies in the tournament, BG Depths actually blows Eldrazi out of the water in terms of rate of return. Heck, there was only one Miracles deck in the tournament, and it came in second. Is that an outlier? Or is it that Miracles just kind of beats up on aggro decks and midrange decks and this was very favorable field? My experience in the format tells me it's the latter, and that people had the Eldrazi cards lying around- or could get them easily- so they sleeved up what they knew.
And here we see a prime example from somebody, how has no freaking clue about NBL Modern.
Edrazi is good (Tier 1.5 if I would need to rate it), but not busted. Than why did people play it? Cause it was OBVIOUS good and it was tested recently in Modern. Both UR Delver as Miracles as Tezzerator just gumpa stomps it, heck even Storm is quite decent against it (but when they have a double Chalice draw, than it gets more iffy).
Sure, slamming 4/4 Thoughseize on turn 2 is good, but the deck has a real threat density problem, just 10 real threats (on average) is a real problem in a format, which just runs rampant with either value chains (TC + Skullclamp, which btw just got with Steam Kin a new toy to play around) or "Mass removal" (Terminus, Wrath, Bridge) or have just bigger creatures (yes, also quite common to have 5/6 or even bigger Goyfs in that format).
People need to do some basic research before posting. Eldrazi is Tier 0 in No Banned List Modern.
Most tournaments have had Eldrazi hit top 8, whether people are saying the results are inbred or not. The fact of the matter is that if you can't rickroll like Eldrazi, you can't play in the format.
Yeah I dont buy that Arena is 'fixed' at all. I've had games where I draw land after land after land after land, and I've had games where I curve out. Thats just Magic.
Its like the people who claim they are forcefully 'held back' in Overwatch by a forced 50/50 win/loss ratio.
Statistically I do not see how it is possible through multiple cases to mull down to two cards in a deck with 24 lands and only see exactly one land each time. It also happened in a way that was very clearly reproduceable.
The details are what I'd like to know. Is it a bug? Does it happen only in a certain mode? What are the exact number of games to trigger it? Does it happen only with a certain kind of deck?
I'll see if the streamers have youtube uploads later. It's still beta as well so it might be a temporary thing to push testing.
Probably going to say this is a topic for the general forums. Also if people here are playing and not seeing this, than that gives more information sources to work with.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
We don't know what Twin looks like post JTMS/AV/Opt/Search/Teferi/etc.
Opt does not find combo pieces as good or reliably as Serum Visions. Ancestral Vision is complete trash that nobody is playing in any deck. I don't see Twin miraculously picking it up. Search for Azcanta is good on the face side, but the back half can't find the mostimportant pieces. Breach Moon never played Search for that very reason. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria is... cute? I guess? It would be nothing more than a different 5 mana win con for slow grindy games (is it any better/worse than Keranos, God of Storms?), while forcing 3 colors and weakening the Blood Moon game (or removing it entirely). Jace, the Mind Sculptor is notoriously bad without a clear boardstate, something that Twin has notoriously been really, really awful at. Again, helps slow grindy matches, and is actively worse than Jace, Architect of Thought in go-wide creature matches (of which there are MANY among top decks).
And as for your Grixis, splashing for Fatal Push, it's again removing two of the strongest plays Twin can make: clean manabase and Blood Moon. Maybe the trade off is worth it? Maybe it's not. Blood Moon gets you free wins. Fatal push might keep you from dying.
The long and short of it is I'm sure a number of people will try out dozens of cute new things to try and "next level" the Twin deck and then realize that most of them aren't any better than a core from 3 years ago. And the swaps they do make will either be for a minimal or lateral gain.
Given that basically every other deck since 2015 evolved and improved with new cards, I'm pretty sure that Twin would too. Especially given that Twin has at least half a dozen new cards to at least consider. I remember just this year we talked about how JTMS would do basically nothing, and now it's a defining staple of UW Control.
But then again, we have people believing that this was a hellish unstoppable boogyman that won everything and oppressed all other decks out of the format, so it's tough to contend with hypotheticals when people can't even agree on reality.
Those people are wrong and I haven't seen those allegations made recently, so I'm not sure why you're bringing this up.
I remember just this year we talked about how JTMS would do basically nothing, and now it's a defining staple of UW Control.
It did do nothing for quite a while, until a completely different build of Ux control adopted 4x Terminus and another half dozen newly-printed cards. Azcanta, Teferi, Field, and Terminus make UW good. Jace has only ever been just OK and is sided out in many matchups since it's so poor against fast aggro decks, combo decks, or really anything but BGx and U mirrors. The deck happens to play Jace, but is not good because of Jace.
But then again, we have people believing that this was a hellish unstoppable boogyman that won everything and oppressed all other decks out of the format, so it's tough to contend with hypotheticals when people can't even agree on reality.
Those people are wrong and I haven't seen those allegations made recently, so I'm not sure why you're bringing this up.
I was just taking a page from your book and generalizing statements made by nameless people in the past and applying them to today. Though if you haven't seen people making such statements or at least alluding as much, you must not be reading many of the comments carefully.
But the fact of the matter remains that I don't even want to discuss this anymore. Ban Twin talk, whatever. I just don't want to have to keep coming back and providing realistic context for the endless doomsaying about a deck that was never as powerful or oppressive as people make it out to have been (and ESPECIALLY not when compared to the power level of today, with nearly 100 new, relevant cards added since then).
And here we see a prime example from somebody, how has no freaking clue about NBL Modern.
Edrazi is good (Tier 1.5 if I would need to rate it), but not busted. Than why did people play it? Cause it was OBVIOUS good and it was tested recently in Modern. Both UR Delver as Miracles as Tezzerator just gumpa stomps it, heck even Storm is quite decent against it (but when they have a double Chalice draw, than it gets more iffy).
Sure, slamming 4/4 Thoughseize on turn 2 is good, but the deck has a real threat density problem, just 10 real threats (on average) is a real problem in a format, which just runs rampant with either value chains (TC + Skullclamp, which btw just got with Steam Kin a new toy to play around) or "Mass removal" (Terminus, Wrath, Bridge) or have just bigger creatures (yes, also quite common to have 5/6 or even bigger Goyfs in that format).
People need to do some basic research before posting. Eldrazi is Tier 0 in No Banned List Modern.
Most tournaments have had Eldrazi hit top 8, whether people are saying the results are inbred or not. The fact of the matter is that if you can't rickroll like Eldrazi, you can't play in the format.
"Eldrazi is tier 0" is going to be the new "Hypergensis is tier 0", isn't it? *facepalm*
People need to play NBLM more before having "informed" opinions on it.
hardly compelling evidence.
dont get me wrong, i generally agree that modern in its current form could safely absorb twin. however a whole lot of conjecture and speculation just isnt going to amount to much, especially considering how conservative wizards is. at the end of the day wizards would have to go out on a limb. on an unban decision? yeah, i wont hold my breath.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)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
Thanks. We can trade if you have them. Pm sent.
Ah, I guess Eldrazi Winter is indeed very cold.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DTOBIGYV-Y
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
And here we see a prime example from somebody, how has no freaking clue about NBL Modern.
Edrazi is good (Tier 1.5 if I would need to rate it), but not busted. Than why did people play it? Cause it was OBVIOUS good and it was tested recently in Modern. Both UR Delver as Miracles as Tezzerator just gumpa stomps it, heck even Storm is quite decent against it (but when they have a double Chalice draw, than it gets more iffy).
Sure, slamming 4/4 Thoughseize on turn 2 is good, but the deck has a real threat density problem, just 10 real threats (on average) is a real problem in a format, which just runs rampant with either value chains (TC + Skullclamp, which btw just got with Steam Kin a new toy to play around) or "Mass removal" (Terminus, Wrath, Bridge) or have just bigger creatures (yes, also quite common to have 5/6 or even bigger Goyfs in that format).
The deck is just to clunky to say it this way to be broken in NBL.
And yes, NBL is fun but degenerate format
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Do you have any evidence for your claims? Here's my evidence: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/scg-no-banned-list-modern-roanoke#online
If Eldrazi was only tier 1.5 in NBL Modern, people playing the actual best decks would have beaten it, and it wouldn't have put 13 copies into the top 25. This was by far the biggest NBL Modern tournament ever held, so these results carry more weight than whatever smaller tournaments you're used to.
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
fair enough. its not like what you were talking about is completely unreasonable, just so many pitfalls with so many unknowns.
for me i look at the top decks right now and seriously wonder if twin could even hang with them. then i remember my experiences playing the deck, when i always believed it played out in matchups better than on paper. only later on did i find out that this was supported by collected data.
i do think its worth considering what twin decks would look like today. its just assumed UR would be it with a few cards swapped around. i think thats worth challenging. for one, twin would be looking to beat different decks. granted i wouldnt expect a huge departure from past builds like you might if you were building some nu-pod deck.
the one thing we know for certain that is in twins favor is that wizards cares about unbanned cards slotting into top decks, the creation of new decks, and revitalizing less seen or struggling play patterns. twin checks all those boxes.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I think this is actually a good reason to unban it. Let the playerbase test it. Most cards on the banned list we don't need to test, but usual suspects that are talked about on this forum (GSZ, SFM) are not cut and dry cases and could make Modern more fun.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
The game fixes the draws after a certain point. The trouble is that I cant figure out if it is more based on total wins or using the same deck. I've been watching live streams of multiple players and have seen this happen across the board with the more successful ones, which is why I am not playing it. I hate that kind of underhanded call of duty manipulation of the experience even if it does make it more fun for the masses.
The problem with spotting it is that you have to have played the game via mtgo or done a lot of paper play to catch it.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern
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Spirits
This seems spurious until proven by some actual numbers. Anecdotally, I can say I have had as much MTG misfortune in Arena as I have in MTGO. This includes mana flood, screw, bad mulligans, strings of bad topdecks, etc.
Re: Twin effect on diversity
I don't think the suggested approach is a good one at assessing Twin's impact on current diversity. First off, the users currently assessing it are making historical errors, let alone present ones. They aren't even accurately representing Twin's win rate against decks in 2015. GK is saying Burn is favored vs. Twin, but UR Twin was 50/50 vs. Burn in 2015. Wraith said BGx was "always a rough matchup" but it was actually 49/51 for Jund and 51/49 for Abzan. If people trying this method are wrong on the known 2015 win rates, they are almost definitely wrong on the unknown 2018 matchups.
Second, there are too many shifts that could happen which are impossible to predict. We don't know what Twin looks like post JTMS/AV/Opt/Search/Teferi/etc. I know a few Twin users claim that stuff like Push/Trophy would check whatever Twin was doing, but we simply have no idea how Grixis Twin adopts Push, UR Twin adopts those new tools, Jeskai Twin adopts Teferi, etc. There are too many unknowns.
I think a much better method is to look at the 2015 decks that were around alongside Twin and classify them by type. Then we can see what individual/types of decks were held back or empowered by Twin's presence. Then we can look at 2018 and assess decks currently played, comparing to 2015 and seeing what may be held back. For instance, Delver decks were big in 2015 and I don't think it was just due to Probe; that deck had a strong Twin matchup. Maybe such decks would return. But stuff like Dredge and H1 would almost definitely be a lot worse, as those kinds of decks were absent in the Twin days. We'd also see a lot of random blue decks like UR Pyromancer, Blue Moon, and BtL Scapeshift probably coalesce towards Twin. At least this method compares actual decks to actual decks, rather than hypothetically (mis)assessing matchups for unknown 75 card lists.
Its like the people who claim they are forcefully 'held back' in Overwatch by a forced 50/50 win/loss ratio.
Spirits
Opt does not find combo pieces as good or reliably as Serum Visions. Ancestral Vision is complete trash that nobody is playing in any deck. I don't see Twin miraculously picking it up. Search for Azcanta is good on the face side, but the back half can't find the most important pieces. Breach Moon never played Search for that very reason. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria is... cute? I guess? It would be nothing more than a different 5 mana win con for slow grindy games (is it any better/worse than Keranos, God of Storms?), while forcing 3 colors and weakening the Blood Moon game (or removing it entirely). Jace, the Mind Sculptor is notoriously bad without a clear boardstate, something that Twin has notoriously been really, really awful at. Again, helps slow grindy matches, and is actively worse than Jace, Architect of Thought in go-wide creature matches (of which there are MANY among top decks).
And as for your Grixis, splashing for Fatal Push, it's again removing two of the strongest plays Twin can make: clean manabase and Blood Moon. Maybe the trade off is worth it? Maybe it's not. Blood Moon gets you free wins. Fatal push might keep you from dying.
The long and short of it is I'm sure a number of people will try out dozens of cute new things to try and "next level" the Twin deck and then realize that most of them aren't any better than a core from 3 years ago. And the swaps they do make will either be for a minimal or lateral gain.
But then again, we have people believing that this was a hellish unstoppable boogyman that won everything and oppressed all other decks out of the format, so it's tough to contend with hypotheticals when people can't even agree on reality.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
yeah my experience with arena so far has had a ton of bad draws. i certainly havent gotten the sense that the RNG is different. claims otherwise would need some serious data to corroborate, like analyzing 10,000+ games.
also, any proper matchmaking system should be keeping your win rate at about even. if those overwatch players are referring to fixing in-game mechanics to sway results. well...they are stupid.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)They are, they are convinced that because a 50/50 is the ideal, the game prevents them from ranking up. The fact they cannot understand that its their skill that has reached its limit, has provided me with many years of laughs.
Spirits
Actually, this a great example of why data analysis is important. The meta in SCG Roanoke was kind of inbred. Eldrazi stompy made up almost 40% of the day 1 decks, IIRC. If you look at the rate of top 25's of decklists with more than 2 copies in the tournament, BG Depths actually blows Eldrazi out of the water in terms of rate of return. Heck, there was only one Miracles deck in the tournament, and it came in second. Is that an outlier? Or is it that Miracles just kind of beats up on aggro decks and midrange decks and this was very favorable field? My experience in the format tells me it's the latter, and that people had the Eldrazi cards lying around- or could get them easily- so they sleeved up what they knew.
All it takes is a simple Google Search for No Banned List Modern Decklists to show this tournament result; https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/scg-no-banned-list-modern-roanoke#paper
People need to do some basic research before posting. Eldrazi is Tier 0 in No Banned List Modern.
Most tournaments have had Eldrazi hit top 8, whether people are saying the results are inbred or not. The fact of the matter is that if you can't rickroll like Eldrazi, you can't play in the format.
Statistically I do not see how it is possible through multiple cases to mull down to two cards in a deck with 24 lands and only see exactly one land each time. It also happened in a way that was very clearly reproduceable.
The details are what I'd like to know. Is it a bug? Does it happen only in a certain mode? What are the exact number of games to trigger it? Does it happen only with a certain kind of deck?
I'll see if the streamers have youtube uploads later. It's still beta as well so it might be a temporary thing to push testing.
Probably going to say this is a topic for the general forums. Also if people here are playing and not seeing this, than that gives more information sources to work with.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Given that basically every other deck since 2015 evolved and improved with new cards, I'm pretty sure that Twin would too. Especially given that Twin has at least half a dozen new cards to at least consider. I remember just this year we talked about how JTMS would do basically nothing, and now it's a defining staple of UW Control.
Those people are wrong and I haven't seen those allegations made recently, so I'm not sure why you're bringing this up.
It did do nothing for quite a while, until a completely different build of Ux control adopted 4x Terminus and another half dozen newly-printed cards. Azcanta, Teferi, Field, and Terminus make UW good. Jace has only ever been just OK and is sided out in many matchups since it's so poor against fast aggro decks, combo decks, or really anything but BGx and U mirrors. The deck happens to play Jace, but is not good because of Jace.
I was just taking a page from your book and generalizing statements made by nameless people in the past and applying them to today. Though if you haven't seen people making such statements or at least alluding as much, you must not be reading many of the comments carefully.
But the fact of the matter remains that I don't even want to discuss this anymore. Ban Twin talk, whatever. I just don't want to have to keep coming back and providing realistic context for the endless doomsaying about a deck that was never as powerful or oppressive as people make it out to have been (and ESPECIALLY not when compared to the power level of today, with nearly 100 new, relevant cards added since then).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
"Eldrazi is tier 0" is going to be the new "Hypergensis is tier 0", isn't it? *facepalm*
People need to play NBLM more before having "informed" opinions on it.
Spirits
And the way to have NBLM see enough play for informed opinions, is for lots of people to play it, right?
Yeah but that simply isn't going to happen.
Without the number of reps and iteration you see in Modern or Standard, you are simply not going to get an accurate picture.
Ponza has spiked events, that doesn't make it Tier 1.
We need a lot more data to make any claims on NBLM.
Spirits