I'm going to have to dive deep into the intricacies of the Death Shadows Jund deck. Traverse has been one of those cards I've wanted to make work since I was the card. I tried to make a Maverick deck, using Traverse as a GSZ stand in, but could never get it to work. I think we all can learn a lot from the deck's construction, and possibly end up seeing more Traverse play.
On a different note, after having seen a lot of the new Death's Shadow and after testing I am convinced that Traverse The Ulvenwald is a Green Sun's Zenith in this deck.
I so badly want to enter MTGO with this deck, but I just do not know. I am super convinced it's one of the best decks I have ever seen in Modern. Its consistency is in broken levels certainly with an insane Traverse in power level, and a crazy 8 cyclers that help you deploy your DS as well and letting you play a small amount of lands as a result and still rarely flooding out, or getting screwed.
I found Abzan Midrange to be 40/60, Jund to be 50/50, Grixis Control to be 40/60 pre-sideboard, 60/40 with 4 Lingering Souls post sideboard, 50/50 against Burn, 50/50 against big mana decks(Bant Eldrazi is a bad matchup and a problem though, it's more like 40/60). It just wins combos as well, most of the creature based strategies except Eldrazi, most aggro decks, etc.
Do you want to play Modern and have a SCARY deck and a SCARY win rate now? Do you want to have a deck with little to non bad matchups? You should be on this deck. It's better than any other deck in the format, and I can say that having experience with many Modern decks(maybe not that much with spell based combos). If Splinter Twin was the best deck back then, this new Death's Shadow deck IS the best deck as well. Expect many more top 8 s from the deck. It's a BEAST.
Does it have weaknesses? Graveyard hate is surely one. Junk and maybe Bant Eldrazi are two 40/60 matchups. I do not think there are many more.
PS: @H0lydiva, you were just right.
I think you're overexaggering a bit. We are talking a Jund variant that's only real noticeable difference between it and base Jund is that it runs a creature that only becomes a creature when the owner is at 12 life or below, and only becomes truly threatening when the owner is in double Lightning Bolt death range. It's similar to Goyf in that it can be huge, but things need to happen first (more so for DS) and it lacks evasion.
If anything, it just shows how good Traverse is.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
The undeniable power creep of the color green as it pertains to magic the gathering is a pet subject of mine. It seems like wizards can't help themselves when it comes to the cards it prints for this slice of the pie as of late. Heaven forbid they print a creature that doesn't have a spell attached to it or that puts a counter on something when it is played, dies, gets exiled, or is casually mentioned in conversation in close proximity to a game in progress.
I won't pretend I don't have my own bias, but really, as the above posts mentioned, the growth of the color green far outstrips that of any other I believe, and green is certainly encroaching on the characteristics traditionally offered by other colors. To those that cite deck building restrictions as a handicap, let's be honest, there are plenty of cards in modern's vast pool to pick from that don't really hinder the effectiveness of their overall game plan. And again, who needs instants and sorceries when they conveniently come with 2/2 bodies these days?
So since Traverse is obviously supposed to be a "fixed GSZ," do you all who've played with the card think it's fixed enough? You can't do the "search up a Dryad Arbor turn 1" play, and it doesn't shuffle back into your library, but it's basically GSZ in the mid to late game, with the added benefit of being able to grab utility lands too. I wonder if this is going to end up being another case of a card that's very borderline like Mox Opal or SSG.
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I think Traverse is a good fix. It can't play all the rolls GSZ could, doesn't shuffle back in, and applies some deck building constraints. While some may say it's easy to break the card, there is a very good reason it's not really seen play until now. If it was as easy as some are making it out to be, it wouldn't have been DOA. It took a while and a banning for people to figure out how to use the card. Even then, we only see one deck currently being able to use the card. If the deck proves it's self to be too good, I'd look to Death's Shadow itself, as it will have gotten one card banned already, and would still be an issue. I don't really think it'll happen, but it's a possibility.
As far as the Green power creep, I do find it interesting, as it mirrors the Threat vs Answer and Creatures vs Spells swing we've seen. Green was a very weak color for a long time in Magic, but as they've been pushing threats and nerfing answers, Green thrived. It'll be interesting to see if this trend reverses as Wizards revisits it's Threats vs Answers issue as they've said they'll be doing.
Remember Jace is banned because of cawblade, by the same logic current standard cards should be banned.
Stoneforge, cawblade again.
Jite, banned because it supposedly would be OP with stoneforge and stoneforge was the more fun card. Stoneforge was allowed in one of the test tournaments, but jite stayed banned even with it's justification also banned.
Artifact lands, banned because they would supposedly be too power in combination with metal craft (remember scars block was the current set), but for some reason mox opal is just fine.
All those things where supposedly too strong to even be considered for play, but then all those early tournaments where smash by infect, storm and other combo.
While I agree with your point in general, I'm confused by your appeal to Affinity. Where's the dissonance between the banning of the artifact lands but Mox Opal being fine? They wanted to hit something in Affinity and chose the artifact lands. With those banned, there wasn't any need to ban anything else. It's like wondering why they didn't ban Vampire Hexmage along with Dark Depths.
Also, I should point out that Affinity was a major contender back in those early days as well, though it was a bit more "combo-ish" by running Atog and Fling.
Mox Opal is definitely a broken card. Why do artifact decks get a free mox, but for some reason a general mox that requires you to mulligan is too powerful? It's because moxes are just broken in general.
When it comes to artifact lands.
1) They power up a lot of different cards. Thirst for knowledge being the first the comes to mind.
2) They don't do much for affinity. Sure people can spout fear about atog, myr enforcer, etc but the reality is that type of deck doesn't even exist in modern right now. If artifact lands power up "affinity" as we know, they do so at the expense of playable colors. No more 6 color sideboards for robots.
3) Mox Opal should just be banned. Not only because it is broken, but because 1 card on the banned list is favorable to 5 cards on the banned list.
1) As with the above it was never allowed to be played in modern.
2) "Most powerful ever" of a card type that sees almost no play in modern is not exactly that intimidating.
You play 4 Jitte in your deck. I play 4 in mine. I am on the play and get mine online first. Who wins?
You play 4 Jitte in your deck. I play 0 or don't draw it. Who wins?
These scenarios are enough to make Jitte too busted for Modern. Not to mention, there are so many decks affected by creature combat. Admittedly, it's not super good against Tron, Titan Shift, Grishoalbrand, and some other Combo decks, but even Birthing Pod was not or wouldn't be super good against those decks.
Skullclamp is just seriously busted. It is probably the 2nd most busted card in the whole Modern (legal and banned) card pool, outside of Mental Misstep.
So you play 4 jitte, have fun with the double/triple jitte no creature hands.
But seriously as horrid of a card as jitte can be to play against, it is definitely self regulating. The decks that it is best against are decks that will play it.
Remember without stoneforge mystic people need to either legitimately draw it or spend an equipment tutor on it. It's not a free cards that any deck can play.
Zoo with 4 Jittes would be a ton of fun. Turn two Nacatl with a Jitte swinging in? Brutal. Good luck against it. A natural foil to it? Burn I guess, which could run Swiftspear, Goblin Guide, Nacatal and Jitte along with a sweet burn set and can run hate for opposing Jittes!
Jitte is still a broken powerhouse. It's a two mana planeswalker that can fit into deck. No. Thank. You.
1) As with the above it was never allowed to be played in modern.
2) "Most powerful ever" of a card type that sees almost no play in modern is not exactly that intimidating.
You play 4 Jitte in your deck. I play 4 in mine. I am on the play and get mine online first. Who wins?
You play 4 Jitte in your deck. I play 0 or don't draw it. Who wins?
These scenarios are enough to make Jitte too busted for Modern. Not to mention, there are so many decks affected by creature combat. Admittedly, it's not super good against Tron, Titan Shift, Grishoalbrand, and some other Combo decks, but even Birthing Pod was not or wouldn't be super good against those decks.
Skullclamp is just seriously busted. It is probably the 2nd most busted card in the whole Modern (legal and banned) card pool, outside of Mental Misstep.
So you play 4 jitte, have fun with the double/triple jitte no creature hands.
But seriously as horrid of a card as jitte can be to play against, it is definitely self regulating. The decks that it is best against are decks that will play it.
Remember without stoneforge mystic people need to either legitimately draw it or spend an equipment tutor on it. It's not a free cards that any deck can play.
Those hands are way less common than games you would lose to not playing 4 Jittes. It doesn't matter how you lose a game. Everything is a calculated risk. There's a chance in Legacy that someone draws all 4 Force of Will and no Brainstorms to shuffle some away in Legacy. Do you think people should play only 1 or 2 of those?
I've played Jitte in multiple formats. I have a lot of experience with Jitte ever since I decided to buy every Rat's Nest decks in order to procure the $20 card at the time. If you have a card that wins you the game, you play 4. Rafiq of the Many was one of the first 4 ofs I'd seen as a creature, but it makes sense. Geist of Saint Traft is also a card that you play as a 4 of. If it's not good, you can always side them out in games 2 and 3.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
No cheeri0s essential components all die to the most common removal spells. This is not True for Twin.
Lol, what? Did you ever actually play with or against Twin, or are you just repeating something someone told you? The combo creatures died to all the removal in the format with the exception of Exarch not dying to a single Bolt. If they do the swap ban that I think they should do, most of us would play Temur colors, where all the combo creatures die to Bolt.
Your list of main deck worthy cards only points to the fact that BGx decks are the only decks with real answers against Twin. Counterspells that is a joke, what other U deck was worth even playing while Twin was legal? None that is exactly why I played Twin, You could build other blue decks to beat twin and then lose to every other type of deck or vise versa. Also the Side board options didn't do anything to help because it became a gamble of did the Twin player sideboard out the combo and thus invalidate your post sideboard plan
Every deck had answers against Twin because every deck can play Dismember. And remember, Spellskite was the most played creature in Modern when Twin was legal, so there's another main deck answer every deck can play. And you seem to forget that Grixis Control was a tier 1 deck with Twin legal, and both Grixis Delver and Jeskai Control were tier 2. You don't have to "build other blue decks to beat Twin," they naturally beat Twin because they were better control decks. And what "sideboard plan" are you even using against Twin as a control deck? You just keep playing your control game. If they don't side out the combo you can still just blow them out by killing their creature in response to Twin, which is why Twin pretty much always sided out the combo and tried to fight on the control axis to give them a better chance.
Blood Moon does not lock players out of the game in the way that Twin did, if you fetched basics etc.. Twin just kills you for playing the game.
Blood Moon absolutely does lock you out of playing the game, that's the whole point of the card. Sure, sometimes you can see it coming and fetch some basics, but sometimes you don't see it coming and can't play any more spells for the rest of the game, or sometimes you can't get all your colors in time or don't have the fetches to find basics.
Just to put it in perspective, my best friend, who I do most of my paper playing with, hates Blood Moon and gets salty when I play it against him. On the other hand, he loved playing against Twin and has been asking me to put Twin back together for casual play.
The idea that Twin would do anything to stop the hyper aggressive kill you as fast as possible decks is also a joke because they are exactly the types of decks that would get a bigger push. Going under Twin has always been a legit strategy and Twin did nothing to stop people from playing decks like Infect
Yeah, this pretty much confirms that you have no idea what you're talking about. Twin was favored against the linear aggressive decks because they could disrupt them in the first couple turns and then kill them as early as turn 4 if the linear decks didn't run any removal. How would adding a deck back into the format that had a universal good matchup against linear aggro give these decks a "bigger push?" Explain that logic to me.
It stifled the amount of decks that are viable to be played in the format, WotC has stated that is a goal for modern as a format it needs to stay banned to keep that aspect of modern.
Name one deck that wasn't viable when Twin was around that's seeing top tier play now, not including decks that became viable because of new cards printed. Just one deck.
Well you continue to no not true etc.... I played nothing but Twin for the majority of the existence of the Format, I would switch between Jund and Twin for the first year and a half of Modern and just stopped playing Jund as much unless it was a obvious.
Decks that were not viable, Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Monkey Grow, Knightfall decks, essentially any other "fair" deck that wasn't BGx based.
URx Decks currently have a hard time dealing with aggressive decks in the early turns of the game. You didn't see decks like this start to take competitive forms in the Format until after Pod was banned. Pod was actually the deck that hated these types of decks out because the consistent infinite life combo was impossible for them to beat. Burn was really the first deck to start to shine after Pods banning, it was a janky deck that only had a few matches it could win in the more narrow viable deck range of Pod/Twin Modern. Once Pod is banned you start to see a increase in these types of decks. Why? Because they are well built to compete against Twin and BGx and very good against Tron, against BGx their redundant spells that are essentially filling 1 of a very limited amount of functions in the deck make dedicated discard less impactful and against Twin the threats are cheap enough to actually reach critical mass quicker than Turn 4 and hopefully out race the deck. Bolt is really the only good card Twin has against such strategies first game, in my experience these are the types of match ups in which it was better to board into a more traditional control deck.
I think you are simply repeating claims that people who desperately want the combo back in the format expound with no real evidence. The linear aggro rise was slow and steady after the banning of Pod which again actually made such decks terrible to play at all with the infinite life gain combo and the natural anti-infect package built into the deck. All a instant win combo does is promote going under the combo, if anything other than the combo was so good against them then Grixis Control would have a much better game 1 against such decks but it doesn't.
Given that Blood Moon is a known quantity in the format since forever getting BM out so hard that you cannot play a single spell for the rest of the game shows that you make bad mana bases. I've played against 3 color decks like Jund with Blue Moon and had Blood Moon be the first card to get cut, because the Jund Player built a mana base that could easily play through it no soothsaying needed he just ran a good amount of basics and drew out. Other times I've Blood Mooned a UW control player and he scooped and told me 25 lands no basics, he typed it all caps which i believe intended to mean anger, in reality a 2 color deck should have been a terrible match for a blood moon deck. Blood Moon only punishes players for having greedy mana bases. I've had more times where Blood Moon did nothing because my opponent wasn't stupid enough to be exploited by it than have had opponents dumb enough to build a deck so poorly that they fold to it so completely.
On the removal issue, Decay was the most common removal that would kill it. Path would do the job but the decks that played path like UW control or Junk had different issues. I'm not in the camp of people that say Twin just killed you on turn 4 every game, I played the deck a lot and more often than not you would combo kill between turn 5-7 it was only a dire thing to do against fast aggro decks which would kill you game 1 if you didn't combo. Against other fair decks it was often better to durdle around and maybe even wait until you draw a extra combo creature and sacrifice one early to give a false sense of security and trick them into doing something stupid like tap out.
Im surprised that you want Twin unbanned given that your painting a picture of it as a terrible deck that every deck could beat easy pessy lemon squeezy.
On a different note, after having seen a lot of the new Death's Shadow and after testing I am convinced that Traverse The Ulvenwald is a Green Sun's Zenith in this deck.
I so badly want to enter MTGO with this deck, but I just do not know. I am super convinced it's one of the best decks I have ever seen in Modern. Its consistency is in broken levels certainly with an insane Traverse in power level, and a crazy 8 cyclers that help you deploy your DS as well and letting you play a small amount of lands as a result and still rarely flooding out, or getting screwed.
I found Abzan Midrange to be 40/60, Jund to be 50/50, Grixis Control to be 40/60 pre-sideboard, 60/40 with 4 Lingering Souls post sideboard, 50/50 against Burn, 50/50 against big mana decks(Bant Eldrazi is a bad matchup and a problem though, it's more like 40/60). It just wins combos as well, most of the creature based strategies except Eldrazi, most aggro decks, etc.
Do you want to play Modern and have a SCARY deck and a SCARY win rate now? Do you want to have a deck with little to non bad matchups? You should be on this deck. It's better than any other deck in the format, and I can say that having experience with many Modern decks(maybe not that much with spell based combos). If Splinter Twin was the best deck back then, this new Death's Shadow deck IS the best deck as well. Expect many more top 8 s from the deck. It's a BEAST.
Does it have weaknesses? Graveyard hate is surely one. Junk and maybe Bant Eldrazi are two 40/60 matchups. I do not think there are many more.
PS: @H0lydiva, you were just right.
I think you're overexaggering a bit. We are talking a Jund variant that's only real noticeable difference between it and base Jund is that it runs a creature that only becomes a creature when the owner is at 12 life or below, and only becomes truly threatening when the owner is in double Lightning Bolt death range. It's similar to Goyf in that it can be huge, but things need to happen first (more so for DS) and it lacks evasion.
If anything, it just shows how good Traverse is.
100% agree with this, Play URx decks and DSjund has been one of the easiest match ups for a long time.
I think the out comes of the Vancouver GP reflected more on the fact that players made very bad assumptions about what the format looks like post banning and post Fatal Push.
Just look at Corey Burkhart's Grixis Control list from that event not even a single fatal push in the 75, even the DSjund players had 1-3 copies (3 in Utter-leyton's winning deck). The best preforming control deck didn't run a single copy of the best removal spell against the exact types of decks that showed up to the event.
Blood moon still turned off a lot of utility lands and not any manabase can play 2+ basics of each color to be able to play around Blood moon and tap ability of Twin's creatures. Also add that with few basics you'll often be turn before bcs of Remand - you just can't recast spells.
For example. Abzan has 1 Plains, 1 Forest and 2 Swamps. He got 1 of each basics and has PtE in hand to answer combo + goyf. What he has to do? Bluff abrupt decay and sit the same time on PtE.
I put aside interaction just to show that there were a lot of situations where you weren't able to do anythings bcs of Twin menace even if Twin pilot doesn't have Splinter twin.
In my opinion it's okay to unban Twin but with banning AV and Exarch. Why: AV will improve postside games againat BGx like midranges (where games are about resources and AV + GDD could shine there) and other match ups; Exarch is a creature with 4th toughness - harder to kill it bunch or removals in modern, he can't be hated by spellskite.
About Fatal push againat Twin. In theory this should work but in practise you always want 2 untapped fetches to be able to avoid 1 tap ability. And this like plays are -2 from Twin player.
Talking about linear aggro decks, " bolt is really the only good card Twin has against such strategies first game, in my experience these are the types of match ups in which it was better to board into a more traditional control deck."
Lol, are you serious dude? You must have been the worst Twin player in the world if you actually did that. You don't board into a traditional control deck against the linear aggro decks, you lean on the combo against decks like that. You board into control against grindy matchups where you can't reliably land the combo. That's just so weird, I've literally never heard anyone say they did that before because it's so obviously wrong.
The linear aggro rise was slow and steady after the banning of Pod which again actually made such decks terrible to play at all with the infinite life gain combo and the natural anti-infect package built into the deck. All a instant win combo does is promote going under the combo, if anything other than the combo was so good against them then Grixis Control would have a much better game 1 against such decks but it doesn't.
It's possible that the banning of Pod contributed more to the linearity in Modern now, but that's not what we're talking about. And you're wrong about how to beat instant win combos. First, about Twin, it was difficult to try to just go under them because they could bolt your first creature, remand your second, then Exarch untap and kill you. Trying to go under them was not a recipe for success. You won by grinding them out while preventing the combo. In the same way, you don't beat Cheeri0s by trying to go under them. You disrupt them to death.
Given that Blood Moon is a known quantity in the format since forever getting BM out so hard that you cannot play a single spell for the rest of the game shows that you make bad mana bases. I've played against 3 color decks like Jund with Blue Moon and had Blood Moon be the first card to get cut, because the Jund Player built a mana base that could easily play through it no Soothsaying needed he just ran a good amount of basics and drew out. Other times I've Blood Mooned a UW control player and he scooped and told me 25 lands no basics, he typed it all caps which i believe intended to mean anger, in reality a 2 color deck should have been a terrible match for a Blood Moon deck. Blood Moon only punishes players for having greedy mana bases. I've had more times where Blood Moon did nothing because my opponent wasn't stupid enough to be exploited by it than have had opponents dumb enough to build a deck so poorly that they fold to it so completely.
My point about Blood Moon is that you were complaining about how Twin makes people play ineffeciently with their mana since they need to bluff removal. Blood Moon accomplishes the same thing by sometimes screwing the opponent's fixing. You don't always completely lock them out of the game, but you often do limit how many spells they can play in a turn because they don't have the right colors. Before the Probe ban, this was one of the best ways that the UR Battle Rage deck beat Jeskai and Grixis Control. Chalice accomplishes the same by just not letting the opponent cast cards in their hand. So my point is that there are many effects in Modern that tax your mana or disrupt how you can play the game. That's not a good reason to keep Twin banned if all these other things are ok.
On the removal issue, Decay was the most common removal that would kill it. Path would do the job but the decks that played path like UW control or Junk had different issues. I'm not in the camp of people that say Twin just killed you on turn 4 every game, I played the deck a lot and more often than not you would combo kill between turn 5-7 it was only a dire thing to do against fast aggro decks which would kill you game 1 if you didn't combo. Against other fair decks it was often better to durdle around and maybe even wait until you draw a extra combo creature and sacrifice one early to give a false sense of security and trick them into doing something stupid like tap out.
Ok, this is all true. I'm not really sure if you're making a point about something here, though, this is all common sense.
Im surprised that you want Twin unbanned given that your painting a picture of it as a terrible deck that every deck could beat easy pessy lemon squeezy.
I never said it was a terrible deck that was easy to beat, I said that every deck had access to maindeckable ways to interact with it. This is where it differs from Dredge. Of course Twin was a really good deck, it wouldn't have been banned if it wasn't. It just wasn't the unbeatable tier 0 format warping wrecking ball that revisionist historians on these threads have been making it out to be over the past year. And it certainly wasn't so bad that they needed to completely kill the deck, tuning it down by banning Exarch would have been sufficient.
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In my opinion it's okay to unban Twin but with banning AV and Exarch. Why: AV will improve postside games againat BGx like midranges (where games are about resources and AV + GDD could shine there) and other match ups; Exarch is a creature with 4th toughness - harder to kill it bunch or removals in modern, he can't be hated by spellskite.
Eh, I think people really overstate the effect AV would have with Twin legal again. Most of Twin's sideboard cards for GBx were either ways to kill Tarmogoyf or win conditions after you've sided out the combo. AV is neither. I could see cutting a Jace AoT and maybe Teferi to fit 2 copies in, but you're not cutting Keranos, Roast, or Blood Moon for more AVs. I've seen some people say Twin would auto play 4 AV in their sideboard, or even maindeck, and that's ridiculous. It wouldn't be played maindeck because it doesn't go with the game 1 plan of being able to combo asap if you need to, and there's just not the space for 4 copies in the sideboard. You would have to give up a lot of ground on several other matchups to fit 4 AV in the SB.
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In my opinion it's okay to unban Twin but with banning AV and Exarch. Why: AV will improve postside games againat BGx like midranges (where games are about resources and AV + GDD could shine there) and other match ups; Exarch is a creature with 4th toughness - harder to kill it bunch or removals in modern, he can't be hated by spellskite.
Eh, I think people really overstate the effect AV would have with Twin legal again. Most of Twin's sideboard cards for GBx were either ways to kill Tarmogoyf or win conditions after you've sided out the combo. AV is neither. I could see cutting a Jace AoT and maybe Teferi to fit 2 copies in, but you're not cutting Keranos, Roast, or Blood Moon for more AVs. I've seen some people say Twin would auto play 4 AV in their sideboard, or even maindeck, and that's ridiculous. It wouldn't be played maindeck because it doesn't go with the game 1 plan of being able to combo asap if you need to, and there's just not the space for 4 copies in the sideboard. You would have to give up a lot of ground on several other matchups to fit 4 AV in the SB.
But will there be only UR versions? I think Grixis can have good removal while playing Blood moons and utilise AV pretty good. And there will be no place for Keranos (or probably there will be, need tests) or Roast.
I agree that AV can see no play it Twin in the end but the idea of using AV at full in combo-control deck will be alive.
Talking about linear aggro decks, " bolt is really the only good card Twin has against such strategies first game, in my experience these are the types of match ups in which it was better to board into a more traditional control deck."
Lol, are you serious dude? You must have been the worst Twin player in the world if you actually did that. You don't board into a traditional control deck against the linear aggro decks, you lean on the combo against decks like that. You board into control against grindy matchups where you can't reliably land the combo. That's just so weird, I've literally never heard anyone say they did that before because it's so obviously wrong.
The linear aggro rise was slow and steady after the banning of Pod which again actually made such decks terrible to play at all with the infinite life gain combo and the natural anti-infect package built into the deck. All a instant win combo does is promote going under the combo, if anything other than the combo was so good against them then Grixis Control would have a much better game 1 against such decks but it doesn't.
It's possible that the banning of Pod contributed more to the linearity in Modern now, but that's not what we're talking about. And you're wrong about how to beat instant win combos. First, about Twin, it was difficult to try to just go under them because they could bolt your first creature, remand your second, then Exarch untap and kill you. Trying to go under them was not a recipe for success. You won by grinding them out while preventing the combo. In the same way, you don't beat Cheeri0s by trying to go under them. You disrupt them to death.
Given that Blood Moon is a known quantity in the format since forever getting BM out so hard that you cannot play a single spell for the rest of the game shows that you make bad mana bases. I've played against 3 color decks like Jund with Blue Moon and had Blood Moon be the first card to get cut, because the Jund Player built a mana base that could easily play through it no Soothsaying needed he just ran a good amount of basics and drew out. Other times I've Blood Mooned a UW control player and he scooped and told me 25 lands no basics, he typed it all caps which i believe intended to mean anger, in reality a 2 color deck should have been a terrible match for a Blood Moon deck. Blood Moon only punishes players for having greedy mana bases. I've had more times where Blood Moon did nothing because my opponent wasn't stupid enough to be exploited by it than have had opponents dumb enough to build a deck so poorly that they fold to it so completely.
My point about Blood Moon is that you were complaining about how Twin makes people play ineffeciently with their mana since they need to bluff removal. Blood Moon accomplishes the same thing by sometimes screwing the opponent's fixing. You don't always completely lock them out of the game, but you often do limit how many spells they can play in a turn because they don't have the right colors. Before the Probe ban, this was one of the best ways that the UR Battle Rage deck beat Jeskai and Grixis Control. Chalice accomplishes the same by just not letting the opponent cast cards in their hand. So my point is that there are many effects in Modern that tax your mana or disrupt how you can play the game. That's not a good reason to keep Twin banned if all these other things are ok.
On the removal issue, Decay was the most common removal that would kill it. Path would do the job but the decks that played path like UW control or Junk had different issues. I'm not in the camp of people that say Twin just killed you on turn 4 every game, I played the deck a lot and more often than not you would combo kill between turn 5-7 it was only a dire thing to do against fast aggro decks which would kill you game 1 if you didn't combo. Against other fair decks it was often better to durdle around and maybe even wait until you draw a extra combo creature and sacrifice one early to give a false sense of security and trick them into doing something stupid like tap out.
Ok, this is all true. I'm not really sure if you're making a point about something here, though, this is all common sense.
Im surprised that you want Twin unbanned given that your painting a picture of it as a terrible deck that every deck could beat easy pessy lemon squeezy.
I never said it was a terrible deck that was easy to beat, I said that every deck had access to maindeckable ways to interact with it. This is where it differs from Dredge. Of course Twin was a really good deck, it wouldn't have been banned if it wasn't. It just wasn't the unbeatable tier 0 format warping wrecking ball that revisionist historians on these threads have been making it out to be over the past year. And it certainly wasn't so bad that they needed to completely kill the deck, tuning it down by banning Exarch would have been sufficient.
the point about removal is that Jund really was the only deck with a strong game 1 against Twin, Junk/abzan which generally looks very similar to Jund had a slightly higher curve on average and it made all the difference.
If you look at the treands in the meta game share from the banning of Treasure Cruise/ DDT to the banning of Twin you see a spike in Grixis decks in general with Grixis Twin slowly absorbing all the meta shares of the other decks. I tried the various grixis builds during that time and like most every other player realized that nothing in Grixis was as strong as adding the instant win combo to the deck.
Cheeri0's is a way easier combo to disrupt than Twin, a Shock literally kills any of the essential peaces.
Blood Moon taxes your mana in that if I have a 1 swamp 1 plains and 1 godless shrine, you can play a spell for B1 and a W or a W1 and B spell you are mooned out of any single double color spell at that moment. Against Twin you cannot play anything with W assuming you have a path, so you would need to wait until you have WW available just to cast the first half of lingering souls. Blood Moon complicates what you can cast per turn but doesn't demand that you not tappout what is available to you.
Against linear Aggro you wouldn't side into things like anger of the gods? You certainly would board into a more traditional control deck which are you know traditionally good at killing linear aggro decks.
I never said it was some T0 deck but I don't think Dredge was either, go look at how the deck was performing before the reban of GGT it was dropping off but it demanded in a similar way to Twin a lot of sideboard cards dedicated to just it. In many ways it did warp the format in a similar way as dredge did, taxed every SB even more thinly and presented a consistent win condition that was difficult for most decks to interact with in a with any many deckable answers. And I always here that Ki-ki was supposed to take its place but never did but when ki-ki decks actually do well like taking down the SCG Modern classic in Baltimore it is ignored and people just keep acting like it hasn't happened.
Going under Twin was still a very strong option because they had to have a very set of specific cards or chance just folding. Remand is bad against 1c.c. 2.cc creatures generally you had to find the combo in game one or your answers would start to be out paced by the velocity at which your opponent can flood the board. Game 2 you get to board in anger and other such dedicated control cards and improve those match ups substantially.
Burn and Infect (kind of the grand daddy of linear strategies in Modern) all started to see increases in meta-shares month after month after Pod was banned, when Pod was still a deck those decks were T2 at best jank . I think that if Tron becomes a super dominate deck (which if it keeps up doing what its been doing in regards to 5-0ing dailies) then Twin would be the obvious unban to help reverse that since Twin has historically been good at beating the decks that look to go over the top of Jund
edit: I also like the what Frank Lepore said about Tiers in Modern in last weeks Magic TV, para phrasing 'in modern Tiers are almost meaningless you can play a "fringe" deck that as long as its well constructed and hammered out you can have reasonable expectations of being competitive and even winning a GP'. This is a environment that WotC has stated they want to exist for the format and Pod/Twin being banned certainly aided in its viability.
I am on a quest to test some Jace decks against a gauntlet of the top tier modern deck. To showcase if Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a safe unbann for modern. The link below will take you to a poll. This poll will be open for the next week so you can vote on what Jace deck you would like to see in action on twitch and Youtube. After the top 2 decks are chosen my friend and I will proxy the decks and battle each deck in a Bo3 against the top 8 decks in modern according to MTG Goldfish. We will gather the data and make a wrap up video of our finding and our final thoughts on whether or not Jace should be unbanned in Modern. So get out there and Vote and pass this along so we get a lot of people involved.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Very fun idea! I'd suggest you get the thread subject changed to indicate the poll and videos, since as-is the title makes it look like it's just a post that belongs over in the Metagame thread.
I voted for Grixis, Jeskai, and I'm Not a Robot. Of those lists, the Grixis and Jeskai decks seem like the ones that are the most optimized for Jace to slot into. (Although on Grixis, I'd highly recommend going to 3-1 Terminate/Fatal Push. 2 Tasigur/4 Jace seems lopsided, but I get that you're trying to maximize the number of times Jace hits the field.)
My personal bet for Jace's biggest impact is actually on Sultai, but I don't think the Delerium list is the right place for him so I left that one out. Something more like the traditional GBx lists with strong midrange creatures, discard, and LotV, plus Jace and Snaps to apply backbreaking amounts of pressure.
Anyways, great idea and great initiative! I'll look forward to seeing where it goes!
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
edit: I also like the what Frank Lepore said about Tiers in Modern in last weeks Magic TV, para phrasing 'in modern Tiers are almost meaningless you can play a "fringe" deck that as long as its well constructed and hammered out you can have reasonable expectations of being competitive and even winning a GP'. This is a environment that WotC has stated they want to exist for the format and Pod/Twin being banned certainly aided in its viability.
I'm not sure what Frank said, but based on this summary, he's not quite correct. Fun fact: 100% of Modern Nexus Tier 1 decks appeared in the GP T32 for both events. Something like 75%-85% of Tier 2 decks appeared, and then sub-50% for Tier 3 and lower. That's not a coincidence; tiers do indeed reflect an important degree of deck viability. That said, it's not fair to say a Tier 1 deck is twice as viable as a Tier 2 deck, or twice as strong. Rather, Tier 1 decks tend to have a slight edge in open metagames in the hands of decent (or better) pilots. Tier 2 decks can gain edges in specific metagames in the hands of more experienced or skilled pilots. But generally speaking, a Tier 1 deck is often "better" than a Tier 2 deck for most players in most events. It's not a big edge and other factors can certainly dull it, but that's a general rule which generally holds true for most events.
With respect to Twin, I believed at the time and still believe Twin was generally speaking the best deck in Modern by a small margin. Sure, more experienced pilots could get small edges over Twin with other decks, but in open metagames in the hands of the middle interquartile of players, Twin was frequently the best deck. This is why I was comfortable with the ban itself, even if deeply uncomfortable with its rationale or explanation. It's also why I wouldn't want to see Twin return but fully acknowledge blue needs something to improve its current standing.
With respect to Twin, I believed at the time and still believe Twin was generally speaking the best deck in Modern by a small margin. Sure, more experienced pilots could get small edges over Twin with other decks, but in open metagames in the hands of the middle interquartile of players, Twin was frequently the best deck. This is why I was comfortable with the ban itself, even if deeply uncomfortable with its rationale or explanation. It's also why I wouldn't want to see Twin return but fully acknowledge blue needs something to improve its current standing.
I think this is a completely sound and reasonable opinion for the ban. But with the speed, ferocity, and strength of the other Tier 1 decks today, I don't even know if this would be as big of a factor today. I'd like the opportunity to find out, and if that was still the case, leave the deck in the format but weaken it by banning Exarch.
[quote from="ktkenshinx »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/764899-state-of-modern-thread-bans-format-health-reprints?comment=4453"With respect to Twin, I believed at the time and still believe Twin was generally speaking the best deck in Modern by a small margin. Sure, more experienced pilots could get small edges over Twin with other decks, but in open metagames in the hands of the middle interquartile of players, Twin was frequently the best deck. This is why I was comfortable with the ban itself, even if deeply uncomfortable with its rationale or explanation. It's also why I wouldn't want to see Twin return but fully acknowledge blue needs something to improve its current standing.
I do understand that if possible blue should not just be twin or bust, and I also see where your coming from. I guess twin is the last case scenario for fixing blue in modern, and I hope wizards does some research so that they dont give us a non twin card only to be not good enough, but also to be JUST good enough to keep twin on the balnlist forever.
I'm brand new to salvation, how would i go about changing the title/thread to better suit the information in my post?
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Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Since I'm pretty much in the process of selling all my staples that aren't GBx and burn, I don't want to play blue control unless it offers something different than Jund/Junk/Shadow. I liked having Twin and GBx since outside a few decks they combated different things. If we get Jace, I feel it'll have most of the same matchups as Jund
I am on a quest to test some Jace decks against a gauntlet of the top tier modern deck. To showcase if Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a safe unbann for modern. The link below will take you to a poll. This poll will be open for the next week so you can vote on what Jace deck you would like to see in action on twitch and Youtube. After the top 2 decks are chosen my friend and I will proxy the decks and battle each deck in a Bo3 against the top 8 decks in modern according to MTG Goldfish. We will gather the data and make a wrap up video of our finding and our final thoughts on whether or not Jace should be unbanned in Modern. So get out there and Vote and pass this along so we get a lot of people involved.
Cheeri0sXWU
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Who's the Beatdown
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I think you're overexaggering a bit. We are talking a Jund variant that's only real noticeable difference between it and base Jund is that it runs a creature that only becomes a creature when the owner is at 12 life or below, and only becomes truly threatening when the owner is in double Lightning Bolt death range. It's similar to Goyf in that it can be huge, but things need to happen first (more so for DS) and it lacks evasion.
If anything, it just shows how good Traverse is.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I won't pretend I don't have my own bias, but really, as the above posts mentioned, the growth of the color green far outstrips that of any other I believe, and green is certainly encroaching on the characteristics traditionally offered by other colors. To those that cite deck building restrictions as a handicap, let's be honest, there are plenty of cards in modern's vast pool to pick from that don't really hinder the effectiveness of their overall game plan. And again, who needs instants and sorceries when they conveniently come with 2/2 bodies these days?
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 far as the Green power creep, I do find it interesting, as it mirrors the Threat vs Answer and Creatures vs Spells swing we've seen. Green was a very weak color for a long time in Magic, but as they've been pushing threats and nerfing answers, Green thrived. It'll be interesting to see if this trend reverses as Wizards revisits it's Threats vs Answers issue as they've said they'll be doing.
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Mox Opal is definitely a broken card. Why do artifact decks get a free mox, but for some reason a general mox that requires you to mulligan is too powerful? It's because moxes are just broken in general.
When it comes to artifact lands.
1) They power up a lot of different cards. Thirst for knowledge being the first the comes to mind.
2) They don't do much for affinity. Sure people can spout fear about atog, myr enforcer, etc but the reality is that type of deck doesn't even exist in modern right now. If artifact lands power up "affinity" as we know, they do so at the expense of playable colors. No more 6 color sideboards for robots.
3) Mox Opal should just be banned. Not only because it is broken, but because 1 card on the banned list is favorable to 5 cards on the banned list.
So you play 4 jitte, have fun with the double/triple jitte no creature hands.
But seriously as horrid of a card as jitte can be to play against, it is definitely self regulating. The decks that it is best against are decks that will play it.
Remember without stoneforge mystic people need to either legitimately draw it or spend an equipment tutor on it. It's not a free cards that any deck can play.
Jitte is still a broken powerhouse. It's a two mana planeswalker that can fit into deck. No. Thank. You.
Cheeri0sXWU
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Those hands are way less common than games you would lose to not playing 4 Jittes. It doesn't matter how you lose a game. Everything is a calculated risk. There's a chance in Legacy that someone draws all 4 Force of Will and no Brainstorms to shuffle some away in Legacy. Do you think people should play only 1 or 2 of those?
I've played Jitte in multiple formats. I have a lot of experience with Jitte ever since I decided to buy every Rat's Nest decks in order to procure the $20 card at the time. If you have a card that wins you the game, you play 4. Rafiq of the Many was one of the first 4 ofs I'd seen as a creature, but it makes sense. Geist of Saint Traft is also a card that you play as a 4 of. If it's not good, you can always side them out in games 2 and 3.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Any more of this, and Team Troll will be more than just a name.
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Well you continue to no not true etc.... I played nothing but Twin for the majority of the existence of the Format, I would switch between Jund and Twin for the first year and a half of Modern and just stopped playing Jund as much unless it was a obvious.
Decks that were not viable, Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Monkey Grow, Knightfall decks, essentially any other "fair" deck that wasn't BGx based.
URx Decks currently have a hard time dealing with aggressive decks in the early turns of the game. You didn't see decks like this start to take competitive forms in the Format until after Pod was banned. Pod was actually the deck that hated these types of decks out because the consistent infinite life combo was impossible for them to beat. Burn was really the first deck to start to shine after Pods banning, it was a janky deck that only had a few matches it could win in the more narrow viable deck range of Pod/Twin Modern. Once Pod is banned you start to see a increase in these types of decks. Why? Because they are well built to compete against Twin and BGx and very good against Tron, against BGx their redundant spells that are essentially filling 1 of a very limited amount of functions in the deck make dedicated discard less impactful and against Twin the threats are cheap enough to actually reach critical mass quicker than Turn 4 and hopefully out race the deck. Bolt is really the only good card Twin has against such strategies first game, in my experience these are the types of match ups in which it was better to board into a more traditional control deck.
I think you are simply repeating claims that people who desperately want the combo back in the format expound with no real evidence. The linear aggro rise was slow and steady after the banning of Pod which again actually made such decks terrible to play at all with the infinite life gain combo and the natural anti-infect package built into the deck. All a instant win combo does is promote going under the combo, if anything other than the combo was so good against them then Grixis Control would have a much better game 1 against such decks but it doesn't.
Given that Blood Moon is a known quantity in the format since forever getting BM out so hard that you cannot play a single spell for the rest of the game shows that you make bad mana bases. I've played against 3 color decks like Jund with Blue Moon and had Blood Moon be the first card to get cut, because the Jund Player built a mana base that could easily play through it no soothsaying needed he just ran a good amount of basics and drew out. Other times I've Blood Mooned a UW control player and he scooped and told me 25 lands no basics, he typed it all caps which i believe intended to mean anger, in reality a 2 color deck should have been a terrible match for a blood moon deck. Blood Moon only punishes players for having greedy mana bases. I've had more times where Blood Moon did nothing because my opponent wasn't stupid enough to be exploited by it than have had opponents dumb enough to build a deck so poorly that they fold to it so completely.
On the removal issue, Decay was the most common removal that would kill it. Path would do the job but the decks that played path like UW control or Junk had different issues. I'm not in the camp of people that say Twin just killed you on turn 4 every game, I played the deck a lot and more often than not you would combo kill between turn 5-7 it was only a dire thing to do against fast aggro decks which would kill you game 1 if you didn't combo. Against other fair decks it was often better to durdle around and maybe even wait until you draw a extra combo creature and sacrifice one early to give a false sense of security and trick them into doing something stupid like tap out.
Im surprised that you want Twin unbanned given that your painting a picture of it as a terrible deck that every deck could beat easy pessy lemon squeezy.
100% agree with this, Play URx decks and DSjund has been one of the easiest match ups for a long time.
I think the out comes of the Vancouver GP reflected more on the fact that players made very bad assumptions about what the format looks like post banning and post Fatal Push.
Just look at Corey Burkhart's Grixis Control list from that event not even a single fatal push in the 75, even the DSjund players had 1-3 copies (3 in Utter-leyton's winning deck). The best preforming control deck didn't run a single copy of the best removal spell against the exact types of decks that showed up to the event.
For example. Abzan has 1 Plains, 1 Forest and 2 Swamps. He got 1 of each basics and has PtE in hand to answer combo + goyf. What he has to do? Bluff abrupt decay and sit the same time on PtE.
I put aside interaction just to show that there were a lot of situations where you weren't able to do anythings bcs of Twin menace even if Twin pilot doesn't have Splinter twin.
In my opinion it's okay to unban Twin but with banning AV and Exarch. Why: AV will improve postside games againat BGx like midranges (where games are about resources and AV + GDD could shine there) and other match ups; Exarch is a creature with 4th toughness - harder to kill it bunch or removals in modern, he can't be hated by spellskite.
About Fatal push againat Twin. In theory this should work but in practise you always want 2 untapped fetches to be able to avoid 1 tap ability. And this like plays are -2 from Twin player.
Grixis Delver and Control: http://modernnexus.com/modern-metagame-breakdown-91-930/
Pretty much the same metagame share as today. Monkey Grow was not viable then, and is still not viable now, so Twin had nothing to do with that. Retreat to Coralhelm only had a 3 month overlap with Twin, but even still was already beginning to show up: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=94620
Here we see an early version of the deck that got third place at a GP, while Twin was still legal.
I'll give you another chance, name one deck that was not viable while Twin was legal and became viable because it was banned.
Lol, are you serious dude? You must have been the worst Twin player in the world if you actually did that. You don't board into a traditional control deck against the linear aggro decks, you lean on the combo against decks like that. You board into control against grindy matchups where you can't reliably land the combo. That's just so weird, I've literally never heard anyone say they did that before because it's so obviously wrong.
It's possible that the banning of Pod contributed more to the linearity in Modern now, but that's not what we're talking about. And you're wrong about how to beat instant win combos. First, about Twin, it was difficult to try to just go under them because they could bolt your first creature, remand your second, then Exarch untap and kill you. Trying to go under them was not a recipe for success. You won by grinding them out while preventing the combo. In the same way, you don't beat Cheeri0s by trying to go under them. You disrupt them to death.
My point about Blood Moon is that you were complaining about how Twin makes people play ineffeciently with their mana since they need to bluff removal. Blood Moon accomplishes the same thing by sometimes screwing the opponent's fixing. You don't always completely lock them out of the game, but you often do limit how many spells they can play in a turn because they don't have the right colors. Before the Probe ban, this was one of the best ways that the UR Battle Rage deck beat Jeskai and Grixis Control. Chalice accomplishes the same by just not letting the opponent cast cards in their hand. So my point is that there are many effects in Modern that tax your mana or disrupt how you can play the game. That's not a good reason to keep Twin banned if all these other things are ok.
Ok, this is all true. I'm not really sure if you're making a point about something here, though, this is all common sense.
I never said it was a terrible deck that was easy to beat, I said that every deck had access to maindeckable ways to interact with it. This is where it differs from Dredge. Of course Twin was a really good deck, it wouldn't have been banned if it wasn't. It just wasn't the unbeatable tier 0 format warping wrecking ball that revisionist historians on these threads have been making it out to be over the past year. And it certainly wasn't so bad that they needed to completely kill the deck, tuning it down by banning Exarch would have been sufficient.
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
Eh, I think people really overstate the effect AV would have with Twin legal again. Most of Twin's sideboard cards for GBx were either ways to kill Tarmogoyf or win conditions after you've sided out the combo. AV is neither. I could see cutting a Jace AoT and maybe Teferi to fit 2 copies in, but you're not cutting Keranos, Roast, or Blood Moon for more AVs. I've seen some people say Twin would auto play 4 AV in their sideboard, or even maindeck, and that's ridiculous. It wouldn't be played maindeck because it doesn't go with the game 1 plan of being able to combo asap if you need to, and there's just not the space for 4 copies in the sideboard. You would have to give up a lot of ground on several other matchups to fit 4 AV in the SB.
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
But will there be only UR versions? I think Grixis can have good removal while playing Blood moons and utilise AV pretty good. And there will be no place for Keranos (or probably there will be, need tests) or Roast.
I agree that AV can see no play it Twin in the end but the idea of using AV at full in combo-control deck will be alive.
the point about removal is that Jund really was the only deck with a strong game 1 against Twin, Junk/abzan which generally looks very similar to Jund had a slightly higher curve on average and it made all the difference.
If you look at the treands in the meta game share from the banning of Treasure Cruise/ DDT to the banning of Twin you see a spike in Grixis decks in general with Grixis Twin slowly absorbing all the meta shares of the other decks. I tried the various grixis builds during that time and like most every other player realized that nothing in Grixis was as strong as adding the instant win combo to the deck.
Cheeri0's is a way easier combo to disrupt than Twin, a Shock literally kills any of the essential peaces.
Blood Moon taxes your mana in that if I have a 1 swamp 1 plains and 1 godless shrine, you can play a spell for B1 and a W or a W1 and B spell you are mooned out of any single double color spell at that moment. Against Twin you cannot play anything with W assuming you have a path, so you would need to wait until you have WW available just to cast the first half of lingering souls. Blood Moon complicates what you can cast per turn but doesn't demand that you not tappout what is available to you.
Against linear Aggro you wouldn't side into things like anger of the gods? You certainly would board into a more traditional control deck which are you know traditionally good at killing linear aggro decks.
I never said it was some T0 deck but I don't think Dredge was either, go look at how the deck was performing before the reban of GGT it was dropping off but it demanded in a similar way to Twin a lot of sideboard cards dedicated to just it. In many ways it did warp the format in a similar way as dredge did, taxed every SB even more thinly and presented a consistent win condition that was difficult for most decks to interact with in a with any many deckable answers. And I always here that Ki-ki was supposed to take its place but never did but when ki-ki decks actually do well like taking down the SCG Modern classic in Baltimore it is ignored and people just keep acting like it hasn't happened.
Going under Twin was still a very strong option because they had to have a very set of specific cards or chance just folding. Remand is bad against 1c.c. 2.cc creatures generally you had to find the combo in game one or your answers would start to be out paced by the velocity at which your opponent can flood the board. Game 2 you get to board in anger and other such dedicated control cards and improve those match ups substantially.
Burn and Infect (kind of the grand daddy of linear strategies in Modern) all started to see increases in meta-shares month after month after Pod was banned, when Pod was still a deck those decks were T2 at best jank . I think that if Tron becomes a super dominate deck (which if it keeps up doing what its been doing in regards to 5-0ing dailies) then Twin would be the obvious unban to help reverse that since Twin has historically been good at beating the decks that look to go over the top of Jund
edit: I also like the what Frank Lepore said about Tiers in Modern in last weeks Magic TV, para phrasing 'in modern Tiers are almost meaningless you can play a "fringe" deck that as long as its well constructed and hammered out you can have reasonable expectations of being competitive and even winning a GP'. This is a environment that WotC has stated they want to exist for the format and Pod/Twin being banned certainly aided in its viability.
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Check out the links down below to see what the decks you are voting on look like!!
Esper: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/thoperswordjace/
Grixis: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/grixis-jace-test/
Sultai: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/delirious-jace/
Bant: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/jaces-retreat-to-coralhelm/
Jeskai: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/jeskai-jace-test/
UR: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/jace-blue-moon/
UW: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/uw-jace-test-v2/
UB: http://www.mtgvault.com/barebox/decks/ub-jace-test-v1/
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Very fun idea! I'd suggest you get the thread subject changed to indicate the poll and videos, since as-is the title makes it look like it's just a post that belongs over in the Metagame thread.
I voted for Grixis, Jeskai, and I'm Not a Robot. Of those lists, the Grixis and Jeskai decks seem like the ones that are the most optimized for Jace to slot into. (Although on Grixis, I'd highly recommend going to 3-1 Terminate/Fatal Push. 2 Tasigur/4 Jace seems lopsided, but I get that you're trying to maximize the number of times Jace hits the field.)
My personal bet for Jace's biggest impact is actually on Sultai, but I don't think the Delerium list is the right place for him so I left that one out. Something more like the traditional GBx lists with strong midrange creatures, discard, and LotV, plus Jace and Snaps to apply backbreaking amounts of pressure.
Anyways, great idea and great initiative! I'll look forward to seeing where it goes!
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
I'm not sure what Frank said, but based on this summary, he's not quite correct. Fun fact: 100% of Modern Nexus Tier 1 decks appeared in the GP T32 for both events. Something like 75%-85% of Tier 2 decks appeared, and then sub-50% for Tier 3 and lower. That's not a coincidence; tiers do indeed reflect an important degree of deck viability. That said, it's not fair to say a Tier 1 deck is twice as viable as a Tier 2 deck, or twice as strong. Rather, Tier 1 decks tend to have a slight edge in open metagames in the hands of decent (or better) pilots. Tier 2 decks can gain edges in specific metagames in the hands of more experienced or skilled pilots. But generally speaking, a Tier 1 deck is often "better" than a Tier 2 deck for most players in most events. It's not a big edge and other factors can certainly dull it, but that's a general rule which generally holds true for most events.
With respect to Twin, I believed at the time and still believe Twin was generally speaking the best deck in Modern by a small margin. Sure, more experienced pilots could get small edges over Twin with other decks, but in open metagames in the hands of the middle interquartile of players, Twin was frequently the best deck. This is why I was comfortable with the ban itself, even if deeply uncomfortable with its rationale or explanation. It's also why I wouldn't want to see Twin return but fully acknowledge blue needs something to improve its current standing.
I think this is a completely sound and reasonable opinion for the ban. But with the speed, ferocity, and strength of the other Tier 1 decks today, I don't even know if this would be as big of a factor today. I'd like the opportunity to find out, and if that was still the case, leave the deck in the format but weaken it by banning Exarch.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I do understand that if possible blue should not just be twin or bust, and I also see where your coming from. I guess twin is the last case scenario for fixing blue in modern, and I hope wizards does some research so that they dont give us a non twin card only to be not good enough, but also to be JUST good enough to keep twin on the balnlist forever.
decks playing:
none
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Merged with State of Modern thread