Maybe not as much anymore now that Reflector Mage is on a banlist - but Deceiver Exarch sitting on a ban list in 5 years would look as strange to us now as the fact that at one point Zuran Orb was banned. I'm not sure they ever even considered an uncommon as a ban due to just how bizarre that'd be. The only other uncommon bans are EXCEEDINGLY busted (Skullclamp, etc.).
Why would the Zuran Orb ban look odd to anyone today? That card is crazy good. In fact, I'd expect that it'd be banned in most Standard formats that have existed.
A better choice of a ban that made sense then but not so much now would be Hypnotic Specter, which was basically the Bloodbraid Elf to Dark Ritual's Deathrite Shaman.
Point taken. Hyppie is a better example here.
Ashton - not saying that I think that's how it should be as I agree that Exarch was the better ban, I just think that Wizards was thinking about the banlist perception.
Also, Twin fundamentally does not break the Turn 4 rule.
Exactly, that is a big problem with the deck. Any deck that even wins a few phases sooner with any consistency gets banned. With the turn 4 rule in place and twin in the format there is no room to brew in combo. Every deck you come up with that is "better than twin" gets banned.
I don't understand this at all. The Turn 4 rule is about speed and consistency, not combos. It seems your issue is more with the Turn 4 rule than Twin. I'd say your benchmark for combo brews should be Ad Nauseam, a dedicated combo deck that is highly resilient and does not break Turn 4 rules; not a Tempo/Control deck that had access to a combo win condition.
Sure if the turn 4 rule was changed i would have no problem with twin in the format.
However, that is the problem. With the turn four rule around there is no combo deck that can be assembled that would be allowed to continue to exist if it was better than twin. (because twin was exactly at the red line not across it but exactly at it) Any time you try to brew it had to meet this standard of "well why would i do this when i could just play twin?"
Weird how there were more combo decks in the format while Twin was in it than after. Storm, Pod, Eggs...
I don't think your argument holds water.
Storm was banned to be slower than pod as was eggs. Thank you for making my point for me.
Pod was not a combo deck. My argument is exactly why wizards banned it. It reduced diversity.
As an aside i am off to play D&D it has been fun debating good night all.
Also, Twin fundamentally does not break the Turn 4 rule.
Exactly, that is a big problem with the deck. Any deck that even wins a few phases sooner with any consistency gets banned. With the turn 4 rule in place and twin in the format there is no room to brew in combo. Every deck you come up with that is "better than twin" gets banned.
I don't understand this at all. The Turn 4 rule is about speed and consistency, not combos. It seems your issue is more with the Turn 4 rule than Twin. I'd say your benchmark for combo brews should be Ad Nauseam, a dedicated combo deck that is highly resilient and does not break Turn 4 rules; not a Tempo/Control deck that had access to a combo win condition.
Sure if the turn 4 rule was changed i would have no problem with twin in the format.
However, that is the problem. With the turn four rule around there is no combo deck that can be assembled that would be allowed to continue to exist if it was better than twin. (because twin was exactly at the red line not across it but exactly at it) Any time you try to brew it had to meet this standard of "well why would i do this when i could just play twin?"
The Turn 4 rule does not exist because of Twin. The Turn 4 rule exists because Legacy is supposed to be a Turn 3 format and Modern is supposed to be a turn slower (4). Also, I don't know what you mean by "allowed to exist." Decks which break the Turn 4 rule get banned, whether Twin is in the format or not (as apparent with the Gitaxian Probe ban just a few days ago). And all powerful Tier 1 decks generally limit the ability to make weird random brews. That's because powerful Tier 1 decks are... well, powerful. None of this really has anything to do with Twin and everything to do with the fact that combo decks are extremely hard to balance without breaking the Turn 4 rule.
Also, Twin fundamentally does not break the Turn 4 rule.
Exactly, that is a big problem with the deck. Any deck that even wins a few phases sooner with any consistency gets banned. With the turn 4 rule in place and twin in the format there is no room to brew in combo. Every deck you come up with that is "better than twin" gets banned.
I don't understand this at all. The Turn 4 rule is about speed and consistency, not combos. It seems your issue is more with the Turn 4 rule than Twin. I'd say your benchmark for combo brews should be Ad Nauseam, a dedicated combo deck that is highly resilient and does not break Turn 4 rules; not a Tempo/Control deck that had access to a combo win condition.
Pod was a definitely a combo deck. It was called Melira
Sure if the turn 4 rule was changed i would have no problem with twin in the format.
However, that is the problem. With the turn four rule around there is no combo deck that can be assembled that would be allowed to continue to exist if it was better than twin. (because twin was exactly at the red line not across it but exactly at it) Any time you try to brew it had to meet this standard of "well why would i do this when i could just play twin?"
Weird how there were more combo decks in the format while Twin was in it than after. Storm, Pod, Eggs...
I don't think your argument holds water.
Storm was banned to be slower than pod as was eggs. Thank you for making my point for me.
Pod was not a combo deck. My argument is exactly why wizards banned it. It reduced diversity.
As an aside i am off to play D&D it has been fun debating good night all.
Pod was definitely a combo deck. It was called Melira Pod on these very forums, and for good reason. Also, you're forgetting about Kiki Pod. In fact, most lists didn't run Spike Feeder/Archangel for a good year after it was discovered because Melira and Co. were just faster. Both versions existed and thrived long before Siege Rhino came into the picture and just valued every thing out.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
I don't understand this at all. The Turn 4 rule is about speed and consistency, not combos. It seems your issue is more with the Turn 4 rule than Twin. I'd say your benchmark for combo brews should be Ad Nauseam, a dedicated combo deck that is highly resilient and does not break Turn 4 rules; not a Tempo/Control deck that had access to a combo win condition.
Pod was a definitely a combo deck. It was called Melira
Sure if the turn 4 rule was changed i would have no problem with twin in the format.
However, that is the problem. With the turn four rule around there is no combo deck that can be assembled that would be allowed to continue to exist if it was better than twin. (because twin was exactly at the red line not across it but exactly at it) Any time you try to brew it had to meet this standard of "well why would i do this when i could just play twin?"
Weird how there were more combo decks in the format while Twin was in it than after. Storm, Pod, Eggs...
I don't think your argument holds water.
Storm was banned to be slower than pod as was eggs. Thank you for making my point for me.
Pod was not a combo deck. My argument is exactly why wizards banned it. It reduced diversity.
As an aside i am off to play D&D it has been fun debating good night all.
Pod was definitely a combo deck. It was called Melira Pod on these very forums, and for good reason. Also, you're forgetting about Kiki Pod. In fact, most lists didn't run Spike Feeder/Archangel for a good year after it was discovered because Melira and Co. were just faster. Both versions existed and thrived long before Siege Rhino came into the picture and just valued every thing out.
Melira Pod was a variant of Pod. Most Pod decks I personally played against were the value/toolbox midrange decks.
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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.
I agree with what you are saying only i am saying why hold the entire color blue hostage. They cannot print good cards in the color blue when this combo exists. The fact that it got to be a normal deck and then win out of nowhere. Meant if you were playing a dedicated combo deck the SOONEST it would be allowed to win is turn 4...... so WHY would you play that deck when you can play twin?
I agree with you. There are at least four or five different decks that would cease to exist in Modern if Twin was unbanned, even if Exarch replaced it on the list.
And those decks are what?
Between this and 'it can only win with the combo' I'm not sure what to make of this thread now.
1) Nahiri Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin exists.
2) UW Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin gives it a faster and more resiliant win condition.
3) Thing in the Ice/Kiln Fiend.
4) Grixis Control. Would simply become Grixis Twin.
5) Valakut Control. The KotR Valakut value decks, not the Scapeshift combo variant. Again, no reason to pilot when Twin is around.
Those five decks currently make up 20% of the Modern metagame, according to MTGTop8. That's just counting decks that Twin cannibalizes, not even decks that get pushed out because they have a supremely poor Twin matchup.
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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.
Uh... that's a combo deck. Was it's only method of victory (outside the closet case where a player drops himself to 6 so Twin can double bolt them for lethal)? The combo. It's doesn't matter if it runs an aggro package, a control package, or a straight combo suite... it is a combo deck.
Wait... huh? Are you saying Splinter Twin's only method of victory, barring "closet cases," was the combo? Because that's not true at all. The deck won many games without comboing off.
Are you honestly going to try and say with a straight face that Twin won consistently without using the combo? If can win consistently without the combo (as in, more than 5% of the decks total wins), then why run the combo at all?
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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.
lol yes it won more than 5% of its games without the combo, did you ever play it?!
Bolt Snap Bolt won MANY games.
As to your 5 decks, I disagree. Grixis Control did exist with Twin, TiTi/Kiln is a completely different (and faster potentially) combo, so no, UW Control, maybe but its not even T2 right now from what I can see (still no finisher worth a damn I would imagine) and RW Control (or is it Jeskai at Tier 2) could completely coexist.
UR Twin could exist with all of those except maybe UW Control that isnt even a thing above Tier 3, which would make me wonder why it would be played, after all why are they not playing Jeskai at Tier 2.
Respectfully, I think you are wrong on both points.
I agree with what you are saying only i am saying why hold the entire color blue hostage. They cannot print good cards in the color blue when this combo exists. The fact that it got to be a normal deck and then win out of nowhere. Meant if you were playing a dedicated combo deck the SOONEST it would be allowed to win is turn 4...... so WHY would you play that deck when you can play twin?
I agree with you. There are at least four or five different decks that would cease to exist in Modern if Twin was unbanned, even if Exarch replaced it on the list.
And those decks are what?
Between this and 'it can only win with the combo' I'm not sure what to make of this thread now.
1) Nahiri Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin exists.
2) UW Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin gives it a faster and more resiliant win condition.
3) Thing in the Ice/Kiln Fiend.
4) Grixis Control. Would simply become Grixis Twin.
5) Valakut Control. The KotR Valakut value decks, not the Scapeshift combo variant. Again, no reason to pilot when Twin is around.
Those five decks currently make up 20% of the Modern metagame, according to MTGTop8. That's just counting decks that Twin cannibalizes, not even decks that get pushed out because they have a supremely poor Twin matchup.
Jeskai Nahiri is pretty much dead now anyway. Chalice/Bridge/Moon decks might still be around, but honestly I wouldn't lose any sleep over those dropping in popularity.
UW Control sees very little play now too (<1%), but would probably love a big Tier 1 deck with a GREAT positive matchup.
UR Prowess just got a kick to the stomach with the Probe ban. It relied on T3 kills and will need massive restructure to be relevant. If it can maintain speed, it kills quicker and more consistently than Twin.
Grixis Control actually had bigger numbers when Twin was legal than it has this entire year.
I'm not sure what Valakut decks you're talking about. Knight of the Reliquary decks combined are less than 1% and I don't see any lists running Valakut.
Twin, especially one powered down by a hypothetical Exarch ban could completely coexist with these decks. And if they "die out," it's probably because they were Tier 3 decks to begin with and their individual relevance doesn't actually change much.
Uh... that's a combo deck. Was it's only method of victory (outside the closet case where a player drops himself to 6 so Twin can double bolt them for lethal)? The combo. It's doesn't matter if it runs an aggro package, a control package, or a straight combo suite... it is a combo deck.
Wait... huh? Are you saying Splinter Twin's only method of victory, barring "closet cases," was the combo? Because that's not true at all. The deck won many games without comboing off.
Are you honestly going to try and say with a straight face that Twin won consistently without using the combo? If can win consistently without the combo (as in, more than 5% of the decks total wins), then why run the combo at all?
Twin absolutely won games without the combo, in fact it won most of them without it. If I had to make a guess, i would say 60% of the games I won when it was legal were won off the back of pestermite beats followed up by bolt-snap-bolt. You run the combo to cheese wins from games you have no business winning
Uh... that's a combo deck. Was it's only method of victory (outside the closet case where a player drops himself to 6 so Twin can double bolt them for lethal)? The combo. It's doesn't matter if it runs an aggro package, a control package, or a straight combo suite... it is a combo deck.
Wait... huh? Are you saying Splinter Twin's only method of victory, barring "closet cases," was the combo? Because that's not true at all. The deck won many games without comboing off.
Are you honestly going to try and say with a straight face that Twin won consistently without using the combo? If can win consistently without the combo (as in, more than 5% of the decks total wins), then why run the combo at all?
Twin absolutely won games without the combo, in fact it won most of them without it. If I had to make a guess, i would say 60% of the games I won when it was legal were won off the back of pestermite beats followed up by bolt-snap-bolt. You run the combo to cheese wins from games you have no business winning
Yep. Fear of the combo was often much more effective than the combo itself. With that fear of combo gone, we have all seen this past year how ineffective and weak the control shell actually is.
I agree with what you are saying only i am saying why hold the entire color blue hostage. They cannot print good cards in the color blue when this combo exists. The fact that it got to be a normal deck and then win out of nowhere. Meant if you were playing a dedicated combo deck the SOONEST it would be allowed to win is turn 4...... so WHY would you play that deck when you can play twin?
I agree with you. There are at least four or five different decks that would cease to exist in Modern if Twin was unbanned, even if Exarch replaced it on the list.
And those decks are what?
Between this and 'it can only win with the combo' I'm not sure what to make of this thread now.
1) Nahiri Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin exists.
2) UW Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin gives it a faster and more resiliant win condition.
3) Thing in the Ice/Kiln Fiend.
4) Grixis Control. Would simply become Grixis Twin.
5) Valakut Control. The KotR Valakut value decks, not the Scapeshift combo variant. Again, no reason to pilot when Twin is around.
Those five decks currently make up 20% of the Modern metagame, according to MTGTop8. That's just counting decks that Twin cannibalizes, not even decks that get pushed out because they have a supremely poor Twin matchup.
I'm pretty sure those numbers are seriously off. MTGTop8 groups Grixis Control together with Delver, Jeskai Nahiri with Boros Moon decks, and has no separate section for Valakut decks using KotR. Going off MTGGoldfish's numbers, they make up about 9% of the meta with only UR Prowess decks holding more than 2% of the meta, and that's pre-Probe banning. People are barely playing these decks even without Twin to compete with, and there were still Grixis Midrange decks and Valakut decks while Twin was at its prime
Uh... that's a combo deck. Was it's only method of victory (outside the closet case where a player drops himself to 6 so Twin can double bolt them for lethal)? The combo. It's doesn't matter if it runs an aggro package, a control package, or a straight combo suite... it is a combo deck.
Wait... huh? Are you saying Splinter Twin's only method of victory, barring "closet cases," was the combo? Because that's not true at all. The deck won many games without comboing off.
Are you honestly going to try and say with a straight face that Twin won consistently without using the combo? If can win consistently without the combo (as in, more than 5% of the decks total wins), then why run the combo at all?
Of course the tempo game was worse than comboing off, but sometimes you can't get the combo on turn 4 and falling back on the tempo strategy is more proactive than sitting on your thumbs waiting for the second combo piece. Did it win a huge number of games using the tempo strategy? Maybe not, but it won a non-negligible number of them through tempo, and not because the pilot aimed to from the start, but because it was usually better than waiting for your second piece or seeing if your opponent would run out of removal
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Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
Uh... that's a combo deck. Was it's only method of victory (outside the closet case where a player drops himself to 6 so Twin can double bolt them for lethal)? The combo. It's doesn't matter if it runs an aggro package, a control package, or a straight combo suite... it is a combo deck.
Wait... huh? Are you saying Splinter Twin's only method of victory, barring "closet cases," was the combo? Because that's not true at all. The deck won many games without comboing off.
Are you honestly going to try and say with a straight face that Twin won consistently without using the combo?
Um... yes? Are you living in 2011-2013? Because your question would only have made sense in those years. We're well past the time when Splinter Twin was all-in on the combo. It was fairly common to take out some (or all) copies of Splinter Twin postboard.
If can win consistently without the combo (as in, more than 5% of the decks total wins), then why run the combo at all?
Because by threatening the combo, you force your opponent to play around it. While they hold up removal in case you go for the combo, you whittle away at their life total with your creatures and direct damage. You basically leverage the threat of the combo to play a tempo game.
Your incredulity might make sense if this was before 2014, but we're well past the years when Splinter Twin was as all-in on the combo as you seem to think it is.
Wizards shouldn't touch the Twin ban right now. URx (Jeskai) was solidly Tier 1 in May, June, and July, dipping in August (but staying Tier 1) and falling out after. So we had a Tier 1 blue deck in four of the nine post-Eldrazi months of 2016. Unfortunately, many of those later 2016 months were heavily influenced by fast decks using Probe and by Dredge, two sets of decks that caused format problems and were hit by bans. Based on those bans and the new Modern going ahead, I'm not willing to write off non-Twin URx decks just yet. We don't know what the post-Probe/GGT meta will look like, and as much as people want to panicmonger about big mana decks, we really don't know what will happen.
Before returning to the 2015 Twin baseline, Wizards should see what URx can do in the new meta. If it's still struggling by April, Wizards should unban something to boost reactive decks: Preordain is a strong option. If URx still sucks by 2018, then it's time to revisit Twin. If that means rebanning Preordain to unban Twin or swap-ban Twin with Exarch, then so be it; two years is more than enough time to see if URx can cut it without Twin. Nacatl waited three years for its unban, but that was probably one year too long and it could've been safely unbanned in 2014 instead of 2015. The demand for Modern change is also greater now than in 2014-2015, further justifying an expedited schedule. I'd follow a similar pattern with Twin/Exarch in 2018.
I think Push is as much a reason to unban Twin as a strike against it. Black now has a 1 mana answer to Exarch that doesn't require losing 4 life.
Preordain would be good, except it's best in a UR "spells matter" deck (Delver, Storm, TiTi decks) and those just got hit hard by the Probe ban. Which is a shame - if Wizards gave us Prone and Preordain back, I think we could have a Tier 1 Delver deck.
Hopefully with the change in design philosophy, we'll get some decent counter magic and non-basic land hate sometime before the end of the decade.
They should really start unbanning cards next cycle.
1. Jace being banned looks like a joke a this point. He is banned for no other reason than he was banned in standard, by that logic reflector mage is too strong for modern.
2. Preordain needed to be banned before simply to slow down combo, but now that probe is gone this only really powers ad nauseam decks beyond their historic power levels. Everything else would be more or less at it's historic power level.
3. Artifact lands are definitely safer for modern than mox opal, if something that fits into affinity needs to be banned it should be mox opal not these lands. Unbanning them powers up lots of control cards like thirst for knowledge.
4. Jitte, as miserable as this card can be to play against unbanning it would provide a good reason not to play highly aggressive creature decks (lets face it there are still turn 3 aggro decks out there). Assuming that Stoneforge Mystic is perma banned because of it's interaction with Batterskull, Jitte ends up as a 1/2 of in a deck that you need to draw fairly. Additionally it polices the decks that it is best in, so it's probably self correcting.
Look at the ban list for modern. they have taken away almost every consistency card we had. You are asking for them to unban 4 consistency cards. There is no way after working over the years to remove consistency, they will unban them.
I would love a swap of exarch for twin. I think it would slot in and be fine.
As I said on the previous page, I think it would be the best solution. It would allow the deck to exist, but be functionally weaker. It would force people into several different directions, depending on how they want to address that weakness.
I mean, I'm all for finding some suitable replacement in the meantime, but it's been a full year already and the best deck U had to offer (Delver) just received a ban. Although Probe wasn't the complete cornerstone of the deck, it's definitely weaker as a result (and wasn't exactly "strong" to begin with).
We're also having a lot of very serious discussions about hate cards and powerful answers. As you have noticed with Fatal Push, we are not totally against printing very powerful answers in Standard, but we need to up that number. The pendulum of threats versus answers has swung too far toward the threats, and that has caused problems with our metagame. Our decision to not print enough answer cards also has shown to be a real problem.
Wizards is aware that answers suck, and they will be printing better answers in the future. This bodes well for Modern, which depends on getting answers through Standard.
I'm gunna take this as justification for the dozens of posts I kept reading that didnt understand this point was clearly an issue, or to the people who very loudly asked the people who Identified this as a problem to create the solution.
I don't really have to know exactly the best way to put out a garbage fire to know a garbage fire still is a problem.
That rant aside. It was pretty clear this was a center of the issue... after all they JUST brought that up when talking about bannings, saying this has been an issue in the making for years. I'm going to chalk this one up for a win and greatly expect the number of stuff like push to increase over the next 3 or so years. I'm also going to see the recent bannings, these little talks (though more is needed), Worth Wollpert being fired off mtgo and the increase in ban chances as wizards actually meaning what they said. "We are listening and thinking about what you said."
They should really start unbanning cards next cycle.
1. Jace being banned looks like a joke a this point. He is banned for no other reason than he was banned in standard, by that logic reflector mage is too strong for modern.
2. Preordain needed to be banned before simply to slow down combo, but now that probe is gone this only really powers ad nauseam decks beyond their historic power levels. Everything else would be more or less at it's historic power level.
3. Artifact lands are definitely safer for modern than mox opal, if something that fits into affinity needs to be banned it should be mox opal not these lands. Unbanning them powers up lots of control cards like thirst for knowledge.
4. Jitte, as miserable as this card can be to play against unbanning it would provide a good reason not to play highly aggressive creature decks (lets face it there are still turn 3 aggro decks out there). Assuming that Stoneforge Mystic is perma banned because of it's interaction with Batterskull, Jitte ends up as a 1/2 of in a deck that you need to draw fairly. Additionally it polices the decks that it is best in, so it's probably self correcting.
Look at the ban list for modern. they have taken away almost every consistency card we had. You are asking for them to unban 4 consistency cards. There is no way after working over the years to remove consistency, they will unban them.
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Jitte and artifact lands are definitely not consistency cards.
But anyways preordain/ponder both got banned to power down combos that presumably don't even exist in the current or post ban meta game. Also given the prevalence of discard in modern, preordain is often going to end up being worse than serum visions. Not protecting the card you want to draw on the top of your deck is definitely a relevant thing in the first few turns of a modern game. That being said I think there is a valid argument that unbanning preordain does nothing for modern and that might be correct.
Jace on the other hand definitely does something. Control has always been hurting in modern. Imagine how that would change if you could late game brainstorm away your mana leaks and other irrelevant cards that you are forced to play to survive the first 4 turns of the game? Adding a little bit of late game consistency to an archetype that is often too inconsistent late game to survive doesn't seem like a bad idea. From a consistency point of view Jace is much worse than say pod.
Sure if the turn 4 rule was changed i would have no problem with twin in the format.
However, that is the problem. With the turn four rule around there is no combo deck that can be assembled that would be allowed to continue to exist if it was better than twin. (because twin was exactly at the red line not across it but exactly at it) Any time you try to brew it had to meet this standard of "well why would i do this when i could just play twin?"
This isn't true at all. Infect is a combo deck that's faster than Twin. Storm before the Probe ban was faster than Twin. Suicide Bloo and Zoo were faster than Twin. Sure, these decks all just got hit with a ban, but Infect will continue to be faster than Twin was. Twin's pre-Turn 4 wins were 0%. Infect's were around 12%, and will probably still be above 10%. Decks are allowed to kill on turn 3, but they just can't do it too often or in ways that can't be easily interacted with.
1) Nahiri Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin exists.
2) UW Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin gives it a faster and more resiliant win condition.
3) Thing in the Ice/Kiln Fiend.
4) Grixis Control. Would simply become Grixis Twin.
5) Valakut Control. The KotR Valakut value decks, not the Scapeshift combo variant. Again, no reason to pilot when Twin is around.
1. Would probably be played even more than it is now because Twin would be a good matchup
2. Same as 1
3. Is dead because of the Probe ban anyway
4. See 1. Also, not if Exarch was banned. I don't think you can get away with 4 pestermites as your only combo creatures, you have to go Temur or Jeskai for Krassis or Bell-Ringer.
5. Who the hell is playing a Knight of the Reliquary Valakut control deck now, even without Twin? One guy in Minnesota? Twin wouldn't stop people from playing Breach Titan or Titanshift.
Are you honestly going to try and say with a straight face that Twin won consistently without using the combo? If can win consistently without the combo (as in, more than 5% of the decks total wins), then why run the combo at all?
Wow, you should probably not be in a message board talking about Twin when you're so hilariously uninformed about it. Twin won the majority (meaning over 50%) of their games without the combo. Most games were won with burn and small creatures beating down. There were several matchups where you would even completely sideboard the combo out and transform into basically a *****ty Blue Moon deck. And the reason they ran the combo even though it wasn't the main source of wins was because the fear of the combo forced the opponent not to tap out, so you were gaining tempo advantage on them.
Control decks will be in a better shape for sure. The metgame needs at least a whole year to see what happens. Outside of Preordain, everything should be off table. With push now, it's laughable to talk about Twin. Maybe if control decks such as a whole in the coming summer.
How do you feel about an Exarch/Twin swap on the banlist (disregarding whether we think WotC would actually do that)? Grixis Twin wouldn't be a thing because you'd have to go Temur or Jeskai for combo creatures, so Push wouldn't go in any Twin deck while also being a great answer to the combo.
Btw, just to correct something. Storm COULD be faster than the UR Twin version (not the URg All in version with Birds) but realistically it was a consistent Turn 4.5 deck. Winning on Turn 3 requires basically the nut hand with Mancer + not a single interaction from the opponent.
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)
Btw, just to correct something. Storm COULD be faster than the UR Twin version (not the URg All in version with Birds) but realistically it was a consistent Turn 4.5 deck. Winning on Turn 3 requires basically the nut hand with Mancer + not a single interaction from the opponent.
Greetings,
Kathal
Depends on which Storm deck your talking about. The version of Storm that got Ponder and Preordain banned didn't waste their time playing crappy goblin and could definitely win on turn 3. Storm without Rite of Flame and Cantrips could still win on Turn 3 with the Goblin + Seething Song albeit, much rarer than the original Storm.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
Btw, just to correct something. Storm COULD be faster than the UR Twin version (not the URg All in version with Birds) but realistically it was a consistent Turn 4.5 deck. Winning on Turn 3 requires basically the nut hand with Mancer + not a single interaction from the opponent.
Greetings,
Kathal
Depends on which Storm deck your talking about. The version of Storm that got Ponder and Preordain banned didn't waste their time playing crappy goblin and could definitely win on turn 3. Storm without Rite of Flame and Cantrips could still win on Turn 3 with the Goblin + Seething Song albeit, much rarer than the original Storm.
Song Storm was banned for violating the T4 rule, winning too consistently on T2 and T3. Whatever its win % was, it was higher than Infect's in 2015 (which wasn't banned in 2016) and was high enough to be banned. Unless we are accusing Wizards of lying about the win %, or claiming we have better/more accurate info than they did, we must concede that the deck legitimately won too consistently on T2 and T3.
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Point taken. Hyppie is a better example here.
Ashton - not saying that I think that's how it should be as I agree that Exarch was the better ban, I just think that Wizards was thinking about the banlist perception.
Storm was banned to be slower than pod as was eggs. Thank you for making my point for me.
Pod was not a combo deck. My argument is exactly why wizards banned it. It reduced diversity.
As an aside i am off to play D&D it has been fun debating good night all.
The Turn 4 rule does not exist because of Twin. The Turn 4 rule exists because Legacy is supposed to be a Turn 3 format and Modern is supposed to be a turn slower (4). Also, I don't know what you mean by "allowed to exist." Decks which break the Turn 4 rule get banned, whether Twin is in the format or not (as apparent with the Gitaxian Probe ban just a few days ago). And all powerful Tier 1 decks generally limit the ability to make weird random brews. That's because powerful Tier 1 decks are... well, powerful. None of this really has anything to do with Twin and everything to do with the fact that combo decks are extremely hard to balance without breaking the Turn 4 rule.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Pod was definitely a combo deck. It was called Melira Pod on these very forums, and for good reason. Also, you're forgetting about Kiki Pod. In fact, most lists didn't run Spike Feeder/Archangel for a good year after it was discovered because Melira and Co. were just faster. Both versions existed and thrived long before Siege Rhino came into the picture and just valued every thing out.
Melira Pod was a variant of Pod. Most Pod decks I personally played against were the value/toolbox midrange decks.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
1) Nahiri Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin exists.
2) UW Control. Zero reason to play it when Twin gives it a faster and more resiliant win condition.
3) Thing in the Ice/Kiln Fiend.
4) Grixis Control. Would simply become Grixis Twin.
5) Valakut Control. The KotR Valakut value decks, not the Scapeshift combo variant. Again, no reason to pilot when Twin is around.
Those five decks currently make up 20% of the Modern metagame, according to MTGTop8. That's just counting decks that Twin cannibalizes, not even decks that get pushed out because they have a supremely poor Twin matchup.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Are you honestly going to try and say with a straight face that Twin won consistently without using the combo? If can win consistently without the combo (as in, more than 5% of the decks total wins), then why run the combo at all?
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Bolt Snap Bolt won MANY games.
As to your 5 decks, I disagree. Grixis Control did exist with Twin, TiTi/Kiln is a completely different (and faster potentially) combo, so no, UW Control, maybe but its not even T2 right now from what I can see (still no finisher worth a damn I would imagine) and RW Control (or is it Jeskai at Tier 2) could completely coexist.
UR Twin could exist with all of those except maybe UW Control that isnt even a thing above Tier 3, which would make me wonder why it would be played, after all why are they not playing Jeskai at Tier 2.
Respectfully, I think you are wrong on both points.
Spirits
Jeskai Nahiri is pretty much dead now anyway. Chalice/Bridge/Moon decks might still be around, but honestly I wouldn't lose any sleep over those dropping in popularity.
UW Control sees very little play now too (<1%), but would probably love a big Tier 1 deck with a GREAT positive matchup.
UR Prowess just got a kick to the stomach with the Probe ban. It relied on T3 kills and will need massive restructure to be relevant. If it can maintain speed, it kills quicker and more consistently than Twin.
Grixis Control actually had bigger numbers when Twin was legal than it has this entire year.
I'm not sure what Valakut decks you're talking about. Knight of the Reliquary decks combined are less than 1% and I don't see any lists running Valakut.
Twin, especially one powered down by a hypothetical Exarch ban could completely coexist with these decks. And if they "die out," it's probably because they were Tier 3 decks to begin with and their individual relevance doesn't actually change much.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Twin absolutely won games without the combo, in fact it won most of them without it. If I had to make a guess, i would say 60% of the games I won when it was legal were won off the back of pestermite beats followed up by bolt-snap-bolt. You run the combo to cheese wins from games you have no business winning
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Yep. Fear of the combo was often much more effective than the combo itself. With that fear of combo gone, we have all seen this past year how ineffective and weak the control shell actually is.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I'm pretty sure those numbers are seriously off. MTGTop8 groups Grixis Control together with Delver, Jeskai Nahiri with Boros Moon decks, and has no separate section for Valakut decks using KotR. Going off MTGGoldfish's numbers, they make up about 9% of the meta with only UR Prowess decks holding more than 2% of the meta, and that's pre-Probe banning. People are barely playing these decks even without Twin to compete with, and there were still Grixis Midrange decks and Valakut decks while Twin was at its prime
Of course the tempo game was worse than comboing off, but sometimes you can't get the combo on turn 4 and falling back on the tempo strategy is more proactive than sitting on your thumbs waiting for the second combo piece. Did it win a huge number of games using the tempo strategy? Maybe not, but it won a non-negligible number of them through tempo, and not because the pilot aimed to from the start, but because it was usually better than waiting for your second piece or seeing if your opponent would run out of removal
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
Um... yes? Are you living in 2011-2013? Because your question would only have made sense in those years. We're well past the time when Splinter Twin was all-in on the combo. It was fairly common to take out some (or all) copies of Splinter Twin postboard.
Because by threatening the combo, you force your opponent to play around it. While they hold up removal in case you go for the combo, you whittle away at their life total with your creatures and direct damage. You basically leverage the threat of the combo to play a tempo game.
Your incredulity might make sense if this was before 2014, but we're well past the years when Splinter Twin was as all-in on the combo as you seem to think it is.
Before returning to the 2015 Twin baseline, Wizards should see what URx can do in the new meta. If it's still struggling by April, Wizards should unban something to boost reactive decks: Preordain is a strong option. If URx still sucks by 2018, then it's time to revisit Twin. If that means rebanning Preordain to unban Twin or swap-ban Twin with Exarch, then so be it; two years is more than enough time to see if URx can cut it without Twin. Nacatl waited three years for its unban, but that was probably one year too long and it could've been safely unbanned in 2014 instead of 2015. The demand for Modern change is also greater now than in 2014-2015, further justifying an expedited schedule. I'd follow a similar pattern with Twin/Exarch in 2018.
I would love a swap of exarch for twin. I think it would slot in and be fine.
Spirits
Preordain would be good, except it's best in a UR "spells matter" deck (Delver, Storm, TiTi decks) and those just got hit hard by the Probe ban. Which is a shame - if Wizards gave us Prone and Preordain back, I think we could have a Tier 1 Delver deck.
Hopefully with the change in design philosophy, we'll get some decent counter magic and non-basic land hate sometime before the end of the decade.
Look at the ban list for modern. they have taken away almost every consistency card we had. You are asking for them to unban 4 consistency cards. There is no way after working over the years to remove consistency, they will unban them.
As I said on the previous page, I think it would be the best solution. It would allow the deck to exist, but be functionally weaker. It would force people into several different directions, depending on how they want to address that weakness.
I mean, I'm all for finding some suitable replacement in the meantime, but it's been a full year already and the best deck U had to offer (Delver) just received a ban. Although Probe wasn't the complete cornerstone of the deck, it's definitely weaker as a result (and wasn't exactly "strong" to begin with).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Yet Twin had to die? Blah.
Spirits
I'm gunna take this as justification for the dozens of posts I kept reading that didnt understand this point was clearly an issue, or to the people who very loudly asked the people who Identified this as a problem to create the solution.
I don't really have to know exactly the best way to put out a garbage fire to know a garbage fire still is a problem.
That rant aside. It was pretty clear this was a center of the issue... after all they JUST brought that up when talking about bannings, saying this has been an issue in the making for years. I'm going to chalk this one up for a win and greatly expect the number of stuff like push to increase over the next 3 or so years. I'm also going to see the recent bannings, these little talks (though more is needed), Worth Wollpert being fired off mtgo and the increase in ban chances as wizards actually meaning what they said. "We are listening and thinking about what you said."
Jitte and artifact lands are definitely not consistency cards.
But anyways preordain/ponder both got banned to power down combos that presumably don't even exist in the current or post ban meta game. Also given the prevalence of discard in modern, preordain is often going to end up being worse than serum visions. Not protecting the card you want to draw on the top of your deck is definitely a relevant thing in the first few turns of a modern game. That being said I think there is a valid argument that unbanning preordain does nothing for modern and that might be correct.
Jace on the other hand definitely does something. Control has always been hurting in modern. Imagine how that would change if you could late game brainstorm away your mana leaks and other irrelevant cards that you are forced to play to survive the first 4 turns of the game? Adding a little bit of late game consistency to an archetype that is often too inconsistent late game to survive doesn't seem like a bad idea. From a consistency point of view Jace is much worse than say pod.
This isn't true at all. Infect is a combo deck that's faster than Twin. Storm before the Probe ban was faster than Twin. Suicide Bloo and Zoo were faster than Twin. Sure, these decks all just got hit with a ban, but Infect will continue to be faster than Twin was. Twin's pre-Turn 4 wins were 0%. Infect's were around 12%, and will probably still be above 10%. Decks are allowed to kill on turn 3, but they just can't do it too often or in ways that can't be easily interacted with.
1. Would probably be played even more than it is now because Twin would be a good matchup
2. Same as 1
3. Is dead because of the Probe ban anyway
4. See 1. Also, not if Exarch was banned. I don't think you can get away with 4 pestermites as your only combo creatures, you have to go Temur or Jeskai for Krassis or Bell-Ringer.
5. Who the hell is playing a Knight of the Reliquary Valakut control deck now, even without Twin? One guy in Minnesota? Twin wouldn't stop people from playing Breach Titan or Titanshift.
Wow, you should probably not be in a message board talking about Twin when you're so hilariously uninformed about it. Twin won the majority (meaning over 50%) of their games without the combo. Most games were won with burn and small creatures beating down. There were several matchups where you would even completely sideboard the combo out and transform into basically a *****ty Blue Moon deck. And the reason they ran the combo even though it wasn't the main source of wins was because the fear of the combo forced the opponent not to tap out, so you were gaining tempo advantage on them.
How do you feel about an Exarch/Twin swap on the banlist (disregarding whether we think WotC would actually do that)? Grixis Twin wouldn't be a thing because you'd have to go Temur or Jeskai for combo creatures, so Push wouldn't go in any Twin deck while also being a great answer to the combo.
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
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Depends on which Storm deck your talking about. The version of Storm that got Ponder and Preordain banned didn't waste their time playing crappy goblin and could definitely win on turn 3. Storm without Rite of Flame and Cantrips could still win on Turn 3 with the Goblin + Seething Song albeit, much rarer than the original Storm.
Song Storm was banned for violating the T4 rule, winning too consistently on T2 and T3. Whatever its win % was, it was higher than Infect's in 2015 (which wasn't banned in 2016) and was high enough to be banned. Unless we are accusing Wizards of lying about the win %, or claiming we have better/more accurate info than they did, we must concede that the deck legitimately won too consistently on T2 and T3.