Are people actually trying to argue that the diversity reason was a good reason to ban Twin? The reason you saw fewer of those decks wasn't just because Twin was good. It was because those other decks were bad. Hence why there wasn't a resurgence in fair URx decks until Ancestral Vision came off the list, and even then Grixis Control was on the low end of T2. Nahiri was T1 for for what, a month? And then URx decks basically died until the last couple of months.
I don't believe that Wizards was trying to be deceptive when they wrote that Twin was stifling diversity, but they definitely misunderstood why it was happening.
On a side note, that diversity ban is a terrible precedence. Might as well ban Death's Shadow because it cannibalized the shares of just about every Grixis deck in the format.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Decks
Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
1) We can't rely on current data, especially MTGTop8, who is notorious for terrible naming and categorization, because data elements (such as League results) are actively and purposely chosen to represent false diversity. MTGTop8 (as well as Goldfish and most aggregate websites) pull their data from Leagues, so their data is actually worse than worthless, it's intentionally misleading.
2) They classify BGx decks like Abzan and Jund as "Aggro"? lol.
3) Even if we DO use MTGTop8's terrible sorting metrics, we see the following distribution of percentages for top decks: 11, 9, 8, 8, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, with representations from fast aggro, different flavors of interactive midrange, some big mana, some combo, and some control. Good distribution spread with lots of different, interactive archetypes represented, without snuffing out aggressive or linear strategies. Honestly I think this was the peak of Modern.
@Albegas, What do the numbers show? *Why* were those decks bad?
Because URx decks lacked good answers, good cantrips, and good, timely win conditions. Twin allowed us to use the crippled and weakened blue cards allowed in Modern because the win condition was timely and powerful and not a slow manland or a planwsalker that took several turns to ultimate. Without Twin, these are essentially just bad fair decks. Delver was at least OK because it could ride cheap threats to victory, but between banning Probe and printing Push, even that is dead. The only deck that is actually consistently having success is a black deck splashing for value cards that plays a 1 mana 10/10, 1 mana 5/5, 1 mana 4/5, 1 mana Negate, and 1 mana take-your-best-card. Anything else just sees sporadic, random results, usually based on great pairings and timely draws.
Removing Twin didn't make them any less bad. They are only "less bad" now because Jeskai got Spell Queller and a black deck is recasting their spells and playing a few cantrips.
Do you have an alternate source for data that you feel is more reliable that you would like to share? I mean, if we refuse to use data at all, then are we not just arguing talking points and hoping that others just agree with us? I went through and searched and filtered a good deal. Feel free to ignore Abzan, Jund, etc., but their classification was the same when Twin was legal as it is now. In both time frames, it was classified as aggro. Just remove it Feel free to present some numbers for us to see to back up your opinion.
As an aside, if you had the choice to play Twin or Grixis Control, which would you choose and why?
Haha, don't worry about that, none of that was directed towards you
I don't always agree with you on things, but you usually bring an interesting perspective on things since you're a combo player st heart and that's perfectly ok. You seem to enjoy the game even if you aren't always 100 percent on board with everything.
I'm definitely sad jund isn't very viable but i have started to come around that you need to be proactive in modern to do well. I can't bring myself to play combo yet but I did etron, affinity and DnT because I don't want to sit there reacting. DNT is just a meta call.
I'm going to a 1k this weekend in an unknown meta and can't decide on whether to go with etron, jeskai or mono taxes
I know it wasn't directed at me, but I know I've done it in the past.
Regarding the 1K, if I were you I'd go with E Tron of those. It seems the safest and in another category than the other 2. To be honest, I'd try to tell you to play Titanshift or Humans, lol. Jeskai is strong and I think it's pretty close. You have to be very versed in the GDS matchup because it is very 50/50 IMO and this one can often come down to play error (which is rare nowadays). Mono Taxes is really a meta call. If you think that there will be a lot of Shadow, maybe go for it! But I think people have shied away from Shadow too much - I'd only expect 6% or so. I'm not sure how it does vs. E Tron, and Titanshift with Bolts/Angers is favored for Titanshift IMO, having played the matchup a bit.
*Out of the PPTQs that I attended this last season, Taxes did well, but never finished well after the top 8. Jeskai was similar, but a guy won with Jeskai Queller when my friend didn't pay for a Summoner's Pact with lethal on board in the top 4. He beat E Tron in the finals. E Tron did better, although honestly a LOT of that was that particular E Tron player. He grinded a lot and actually lost in a PPTQ finals at least 3 times that I'm aware of.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
So, when people say that they long for the days of interactive Magic (aka: for when Twin was legal), there is a reason for this.
Twin, as a deck, had a combo that you had to be able to answer. You had too. If you couldn't, you would lose on turn 4 a lot of the time, because the deck was capable of playing a lot of consistency tools and interaction while also playing a two card combo that just won. This combo was also, by the standards of Modern and combo decks in general, very low opportunity cost. Yeah, you had to run 10 cards, but 6 of those 10 cards were useful even without the other 4, and could still win you the game over time if not interacted with. Assuming that a Twin deck ran 24 or 25 lands, that gives you a whole 25 more cards to use as consistency tools and ways to interact.
There are no other combo decks in Modern that can be built to be turn 4 consistent AND pack a lot of ways to interact. Storm requires a critical mass, RG Scapeshift requires at least 27 lands and at least 10 ramp spells as well as 10 "payoff" cards, Grixis and Jund Shadow can't run Temur Battle Rage as a 4 of because it's dead in a lot of situations, Abzan Coco or Kiki Chord require a high density of creatures to actually function... Pod needed a critical mass of creatures too, but was more of a midrange deck with a value engine that could also pull off an infinite combo.
This is exactly why Twin fostered a more interactive format, and why it was considered too good by WotC and by a lot of players. It was a combo that you HAD to be able to answer, but also fit into a shell that could run a lot of interactive spells itself. It could play both the combo game and the tempo/counterburn game at a very high level of efficiency. So much so, in fact, that the only reason to play a URx deck that wasn't Twin was if it could combo off faster than Twin could, like Storm did, at which point you had to worry about the issue of consistency - if your deck was too consistent at going off before Twin could, you could expect a ban, or if it specifically had a good Twin matchup - Grixis Delver, Jeskai Control, and RUG Scapeshift are all examples of 'UR decks with a decent Twin matchup', but against the rest of the field, they were more or less just flat out worse than Twin was.
All of this is sufficient reason, in my opinion, for Twin to have been banned, and for it to remain banned, even though I honestly don't give a s#$t any more; if they unban it, I'm fine, coz I play the cards they give me. However, for anyone to claim that Twin was unfairly banned or was only banned to "shake up the PT" are ignoring some of the key realities of what the format was like while Twin was legal; Twin forced a format that was interactive because it was itself an infinite combo deck that could also interact just as well as the interactive decks. The combo decks of today can't afford to run anywhere near as much interacting, and as such the whole "playing past your opponent" rather than interacting issue has arisen.
Just because Twin lead to more interactive games doesn't mean that it wasn't too good of a deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Do you have an alternate source for data that you feel is more reliable that you would like to share?
There IS no reliable data. Or at least the closest thing we have is aggregates of paper tournaments that are incredibly small snapshots, fairly far apart from each other, and rarely statistically relevant. Like I said, the data coming from MTGO is not even worthless, it is ACTIVELY misrepresentative because they do not allow for a true representation of the meta to be made known. In addition to cutting from 10 lists to 5, they went from 10 random lists to 5 lists which do not share cards between them. Let's look at an exaggerated example: If out of 100 5-0 Leagues on a given day, 96 of them were functionally the same deck (+/- a few flex slots and sideboard cards), but 4 random brews happened to spike the non-swiss, 5-round event, Wizards will post 5 different decklists. We will see 5 different lists and the aggregate websites will list these 5 decks as each representing 20% of the format from this sample size. But reality says that Deck A is ~96% of the meta and decks B-E are only 1% each. So this method of deck selection actively skews meta representations to LOOK more diverse than they actually are by lowering the numbers of top decks and raising numbers of low decks.
I mean, if we refuse to use data at all, then are we not just arguing talking points and hoping that others just agree with us?
That's pretty much what this thread has been since Modern Nexus stopped making updates and we had to rely on automated cites like Goldfish and Top8. Since Wizards redacted any meaningful data, there's really nothing left but talking points.
I went through and searched and filtered a good deal. Feel free to ignore Abzan, Jund, etc., but their classification was the same when Twin was legal as it is now. In both time frames, it was classified as aggro. Just remove it Feel free to present some numbers for us to see to back up your opinion.
When you only have three categories, you aren't really representing what's going on. Unless you think BGx and Affinity are basically the same deck. That doesn't even get into the numerous other erroneous listings such as "Delver" decks with no Delver, "Nahiri" decks with no Nahiri, "Scapeshift" decks with no Scapeshift, etc. Their naming system is sloppy because it's a combination of automated and user-generated. Mistakes everywhere and difficult to pull any meaningful conclusions from.
As an aside, if you had the choice to play Twin or Grixis Control, which would you choose and why?
I would play Twin for the same reason I wouldn't play Grixis Control today: Grixis Control is a bad deck. I would also play Delver over Grixis Control. And Shadow over Grixis Control. The real question is would I play Twin over Shadow... and that's harder to answer, especially since Shadow would have an amazing matchup against Twin while still holding game against many other decks.
@thnkr Thanks, that will help me get on the same page as far as this debate goes. To refine things, are you leaving any level of events off of the search? And it also explains the two month date selections...
On the subject of which deck of the two: Twin, and I'll give my reasons.
1) A solid wincon. Grixis has tried to find their wincon as a control deck, but other than a Cruel Ultimatum list, there hasn't been one defined one. Twin had a potential turn 4 win (though not advisable to use then) and used its tools to delay the game until it could land its haymaker.
2) Mana base price. May sound a bit odd, but card price matters especially when trying to get into the format. Trying to build a mana base is harder with three colors than two and without fetchlands (if you can't afford them) is even harder.
3) There are currently better Grixis Decks than control. No one will debate right now that Death's Shadow is the better Grixis deck, so why play a worse Grixis deck, or URx deck for that matter?
-------
On a sidenote, I don't think Twin will come back, given Wizards talk on "meta health". Still I see no problem discussing whether it was a part of a healthy environment during its time.
And I'm willing to try the post-ban UR Kiki list. The deck isn't as dead as some might think, it just lost a lot of its following post-twin ban.
Haha, don't worry about that, none of that was directed towards you
I don't always agree with you on things, but you usually bring an interesting perspective on things since you're a combo player st heart and that's perfectly ok. You seem to enjoy the game even if you aren't always 100 percent on board with everything.
I'm definitely sad jund isn't very viable but i have started to come around that you need to be proactive in modern to do well. I can't bring myself to play combo yet but I did etron, affinity and DnT because I don't want to sit there reacting. DNT is just a meta call.
I'm going to a 1k this weekend in an unknown meta and can't decide on whether to go with etron, jeskai or mono taxes
I know it wasn't directed at me, but I know I've done it in the past.
Regarding the 1K, if I were you I'd go with E Tron of those. It seems the safest and in another category than the other 2. To be honest, I'd try to tell you to play Titanshift or Humans, lol. Jeskai is strong and I think it's pretty close. You have to be very versed in the GDS matchup because it is very 50/50 IMO and this one can often come down to play error (which is rare nowadays). Mono Taxes is really a meta call. If you think that there will be a lot of Shadow, maybe go for it! But I think people have shied away from Shadow too much - I'd only expect 6% or so. I'm not sure how it does vs. E Tron, and Titanshift with Bolts/Angers is favored for Titanshift IMO, having played the matchup a bit.
*Out of the PPTQs that I attended this last season, Taxes did well, but never finished well after the top 8. Jeskai was similar, but a guy won with Jeskai Queller when my friend didn't pay for a Summoner's Pact with lethal on board in the top 4. He beat E Tron in the finals. E Tron did better, although honestly a LOT of that was that particular E Tron player. He grinded a lot and actually lost in a PPTQ finals at least 3 times that I'm aware of.
I like that advice, I think for now I'll drop Taxes for the IQ unless there becomes a more obvious point like when Shadow, Tron and Titanshift were heavily
expected.
I'm wary of the meta because I wonder if creature aggro and humans shows up in waves from last weeks Open. I'm not sure E-Tron can handle that humans deck
I honestly haven't had any truly bad days with Etron, except for like 1 FNM. The last PPTQ I just missed top 8. Felt bad too, because I honestly could only recall one mistake I made throughout the entire tournament and felt like I played pretty tight, and the mistake wasn't huge. On top of that, I won some truly bad matchups like Titanshift and Bant Eldrazi
@cfusionpm, I understand why you would not want to use sites like MTGTop8 or MTGGoldfish, then, although I still find it at least somewhat reliable. We can filter the decks ourselves using the search option, and reclassify them as we see fit. We can also ignore all MTGO data, to avoid skewing our observations with that data. I do think that if we try to have a conversation with zero data, however, then we may end up just talking past eachother, which doesn't seem productive at all.
@Shockwave07, I wasn't leaving any level event off the search. The majority of Magic players will be experiencing local tournaments, so I wanted to mainly include that data. I didn't want to leave out any other data, though, so I kept it as well. I figured that more data is just better. I personally have played in 2 GP's, 2 States events, and 1 Open, but due to work, etc., I typically play in my local metagame primarily.
Thanks for the answers on the Twin vs. Grixis Control choice. It wasn't too long ago that Grixis Control was actually doing quite well, up until Grixis Shadow took over and just became what seems like a strictly better version.
This is exactly why Twin fostered a more interactive format, and why it was considered too good by WotC and by a lot of players.
What prominent voices in the community (articles, pros, tweets, etc) actually and legitimately thought Twin was too good and should be banned? Because it seems this work of fiction has been retroactively inserted into everyone's memories. Other than a joking satire article, I can't remember any large concerns or pitchforks and cries for its ban, especially when Bloom was public enemy #1 at the time and BGx/Affinity held such strong numbers. After the ban it was petrifying shock across the entire community.
One of the comments from that article above sums up my position on Twin nicely: "Punish the twin deck because the other decks don't play enough "hate cards" such as spellskite to stop the combo? It's a dog eat dog world. If you're going to play modern, a format with powerful cards and combo's don't bring cute to the table and expect not to lose a few. As a former Twin hater I also use to think rats I'm dead on turn 4 every time I played it. Once you actually pilot the deck you see that often that's not the case. The real advantage of it is how much your opponent is forced to respect a turn 3 exarch even if you don't have the twin in hand."
That respect for the other player is completely gone in Modern. Your best strategy is often to completely disregard your opponent's plays and just jam your proactive plan as quickly as possible. I do NOT think that makes the format a better place.
As for all your other concerns, if those were actually included in the ban announcement, we could have a discussion. For essentially ALL the reasons Wizards wrote in words and published, the Twin ban was both a mistake and a failure.
@Albegas, What do the numbers show? *Why* were those decks bad?
http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=MO&meta=118
All the decks from 2016 that made it to top 8s. You will notice on further inspection that the 3% Grixis holds isn't even held solely by Grixis Control, but rather by both Grixis Control and Grixis Delver.
As cfusionpm said, MTGTop8 is notorious for categorizing decks incorrectly, but in this case I believe the numbers are correct enough to show that URx decks after the Twin ban did not spike in popularity after the ban, implying that Splinter Twin being the best URx deck was not why those decks died out. Otherwise, we'd at least see something get somewhere close to Twin's metashares
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Decks
Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
Oh geez...ok, I'm going to just say that as a blue player, I seem to be in the minority in not liking Twin. I initially hated it because I had just transitioned to Modern with a pet Esper deck, and every other person at my LGS was using a Twin deck and crushing me into dust. I'd even get ridiculed by the players there that if I was running blue, then I needed the Twin package or I was doing it wrong. Welp, that didn't sit well with me, so I tuned my Esper deck to be as anti-twin as possible. That worked great, until a Bloom player smoked me. That guy actually directed me towards resources that helped me become a better deckbuilder and player. So for a long time, Twin was associated with bad times in Magic.
However, looking at it more objectively now, I can see how Twin's presence could have a positive impact on the format. I made a whole other post about that over a week ago though. Here's a question for y'all though: How important is color diversity to you?
@Albegas, What do the numbers show? *Why* were those decks bad?
http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=MO&meta=118
All the decks from 2016 that made it to top 8s. You will notice on further inspection that the 3% Grixis holds isn't even held solely by Grixis Control, but rather by both Grixis Control and Grixis Delver.
As cfusionpm said, MTGTop8 is notorious for categorizing decks incorrectly, but in this case I believe the numbers are correct enough to show that URx decks after the Twin ban did not spike in popularity after the ban, implying that Splinter Twin being the best URx deck was not why those decks died out. Otherwise, we'd at least see something get somewhere close to Twin's metashares
Of course there isn't. No other deck can kill on Turn 3.5 with extreme consistency while still dedicating a large chunk of the (23-27 cards) protecting its combo kill. Doesn't mean the deck is good for the format.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"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.
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.
Of course there isn't. No other deck can kill on Turn 3.5 with extreme consistency while still dedicating a large chunk of the (23-27 cards) protecting its combo kill. Doesn't mean the deck is good for the format.
See, comments like this are why we can't have honest conversations. It does not kill on "turn 3.5." It can kill on turn 4, at sorcery speed, during your combat step. And even that only happened naturally about 13-25% of the time, assuming your opponent did nothing to interact or pressure you into using your mana on something else, you hit all your land drops every turn, had RR available, and had both combo pieces. But at that point, if your opponent spends 4 turns ignoring you, they should either be winning themselves anyway or they absolutely deserve to lose.
Of course there isn't. No other deck can kill on Turn 3.5 with extreme consistency while still dedicating a large chunk of the (23-27 cards) protecting its combo kill.
Thing is, Twin can't do that either.
EDIT: To better clarify: You can either get the kill consistently (All-In Twin) or dedicate a large chunk of the cards to protecting the combo kill (Tempo Twin), but you can't have both.
By the time Twin was banned, it was much more of a control deck than a combo deck. Look at the early modern Twin lists, then look at the lists before it was banned. Most Twin players had shaved Twin to 3 copies. It wasn't combo'ing T4 all that often, and that was often it's plan B to keep the degenerate decks in check (Tron, Bloom, etc.). The format is much worse off as a whole without it. (And honestly, I can't believe people complain about a T4 combo, when Modern has devolved into mostly a T3 format now....I mean really..lmao)
Of course there isn't. No other deck can kill on Turn 3.5 with extreme consistency while still dedicating a large chunk of the (23-27 cards) protecting its combo kill. Doesn't mean the deck is good for the format.
See, comments like this are why we can't have honest conversations. It does not kill on "turn 3.5." It can kill on turn 4, at sorcery speed, during your combat step. And even that only happened naturally about 13-25% of the time, assuming your opponent did nothing to interact or pressure you into using your mana on something else, you hit all your land drops every turn, had RR available, and had both combo pieces. But at that point, if your opponent spends 4 turns ignoring you, they should either be winning themselves anyway or they absolutely deserve to lose.
Uh huh. Remember, this is the MTGS ban list thread. We don't talk about the turn you die. We talk about the turn the game is effectively over. So if they commit the horrible sin of tapping out on Turn 3, they die during that end step when Twin flashes in Exarch/Mite. It doesn't matter that they ACTUALLY lose the game on Turn 4 when a billion Exarchs/Mites hit. They died on Turn 3.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"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.
By the time Twin was banned, it was much more of a control deck than a combo deck. Look at the early modern Twin lists, then look at the lists before it was banned. Most Twin players had shaved Twin to 3 copies. It wasn't combo'ing T4 all that often, and that was often it's plan B to keep the degenerate decks in check (Tron, Bloom, etc.). The format is much worse off as a whole without it. (And honestly, I can't believe people complain about a T4 combo, when Modern has devolved into mostly a T3 format now....I mean really..lmao)
Yep. Twin was a pure control deck. Meanwhile, the litany of recent blue decks that run counter magic and Snapcaster Mage are "Aggro" or "Linear Mid-Range".
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"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.
Of course there isn't. No other deck can kill on Turn 3.5 with extreme consistency while still dedicating a large chunk of the (23-27 cards) protecting its combo kill.
Thing is, Twin can't do that either.
EDIT: To better clarify: You can either get the kill consistently (All-In Twin) or dedicate a large chunk of the cards to protecting the combo kill (Tempo Twin), but you can't have both.
And what's the difference. 4 Twins instead of 3? The primary win-con is still the combo kill. And both can easily kill on Turn 3.5.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"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 huh. Remember, this is the MTGS ban list thread. We don't talk about the turn you die. We talk about the turn the game is effectively over. So if they commit the horrible sin of tapping out on Turn 3, they die during that end step when Twin flashes in Exarch/Mite. It doesn't matter that they ACTUALLY lose the game on Turn 4 when a billion Exarchs/Mites hit. They died on Turn 3.
That's not how Wizards defines kill turns. They define it as the turn where the game actually ends, whether through lethal damage or a concession. No player is ever going to concede to an Exarch on their end step, because Twin often just ran them out to start beating down even when they didn't have the Twin. So no, it didn't kill on turn 3 ever unless someone was just rage/tilt scooping.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Uh huh. Remember, this is the MTGS ban list thread. We don't talk about the turn you die. We talk about the turn the game is effectively over. So if they commit the horrible sin of tapping out on Turn 3, they die during that end step when Twin flashes in Exarch/Mite. It doesn't matter that they ACTUALLY lose the game on Turn 4 when a billion Exarchs/Mites hit. They died on Turn 3.
But by this logic, all turn 4 combo decks actually kill on turn 3 if the opponent taps out without having something in play that could thwart the combo, as it means they're essentially rendering themselves unable to give any answer to an opponent's combo, so if the opponent can pull off the combo, they effectively lost on turn 3 by your logic. So the argument fails as it applies to all of the other combo decks. Tap out against Ad Nauseam on turn 3 and thus have no answer to them when they go off next turn? Well, you lost on turn 3.
The only distinction is that Twin does cast a combo piece at the end of the opponent's turn, but that doesn't make it "turn 3.5" any more than Ad Nauseam casting a Phyrexian Unlife on their third turn and then going off on the fourth makes it turn 3 just because it put out the first combo piece on that turn.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I don't believe that Wizards was trying to be deceptive when they wrote that Twin was stifling diversity, but they definitely misunderstood why it was happening.
On a side note, that diversity ban is a terrible precedence. Might as well ban Death's Shadow because it cannibalized the shares of just about every Grixis deck in the format.
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
2) They classify BGx decks like Abzan and Jund as "Aggro"? lol.
3) Even if we DO use MTGTop8's terrible sorting metrics, we see the following distribution of percentages for top decks: 11, 9, 8, 8, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, with representations from fast aggro, different flavors of interactive midrange, some big mana, some combo, and some control. Good distribution spread with lots of different, interactive archetypes represented, without snuffing out aggressive or linear strategies. Honestly I think this was the peak of Modern.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Because URx decks lacked good answers, good cantrips, and good, timely win conditions. Twin allowed us to use the crippled and weakened blue cards allowed in Modern because the win condition was timely and powerful and not a slow manland or a planwsalker that took several turns to ultimate. Without Twin, these are essentially just bad fair decks. Delver was at least OK because it could ride cheap threats to victory, but between banning Probe and printing Push, even that is dead. The only deck that is actually consistently having success is a black deck splashing for value cards that plays a 1 mana 10/10, 1 mana 5/5, 1 mana 4/5, 1 mana Negate, and 1 mana take-your-best-card. Anything else just sees sporadic, random results, usually based on great pairings and timely draws.
Removing Twin didn't make them any less bad. They are only "less bad" now because Jeskai got Spell Queller and a black deck is recasting their spells and playing a few cantrips.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
As an aside, if you had the choice to play Twin or Grixis Control, which would you choose and why?
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
I know it wasn't directed at me, but I know I've done it in the past.
Regarding the 1K, if I were you I'd go with E Tron of those. It seems the safest and in another category than the other 2. To be honest, I'd try to tell you to play Titanshift or Humans, lol. Jeskai is strong and I think it's pretty close. You have to be very versed in the GDS matchup because it is very 50/50 IMO and this one can often come down to play error (which is rare nowadays). Mono Taxes is really a meta call. If you think that there will be a lot of Shadow, maybe go for it! But I think people have shied away from Shadow too much - I'd only expect 6% or so. I'm not sure how it does vs. E Tron, and Titanshift with Bolts/Angers is favored for Titanshift IMO, having played the matchup a bit.
*Out of the PPTQs that I attended this last season, Taxes did well, but never finished well after the top 8. Jeskai was similar, but a guy won with Jeskai Queller when my friend didn't pay for a Summoner's Pact with lethal on board in the top 4. He beat E Tron in the finals. E Tron did better, although honestly a LOT of that was that particular E Tron player. He grinded a lot and actually lost in a PPTQ finals at least 3 times that I'm aware of.
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)Twin, as a deck, had a combo that you had to be able to answer. You had too. If you couldn't, you would lose on turn 4 a lot of the time, because the deck was capable of playing a lot of consistency tools and interaction while also playing a two card combo that just won. This combo was also, by the standards of Modern and combo decks in general, very low opportunity cost. Yeah, you had to run 10 cards, but 6 of those 10 cards were useful even without the other 4, and could still win you the game over time if not interacted with. Assuming that a Twin deck ran 24 or 25 lands, that gives you a whole 25 more cards to use as consistency tools and ways to interact.
There are no other combo decks in Modern that can be built to be turn 4 consistent AND pack a lot of ways to interact. Storm requires a critical mass, RG Scapeshift requires at least 27 lands and at least 10 ramp spells as well as 10 "payoff" cards, Grixis and Jund Shadow can't run Temur Battle Rage as a 4 of because it's dead in a lot of situations, Abzan Coco or Kiki Chord require a high density of creatures to actually function... Pod needed a critical mass of creatures too, but was more of a midrange deck with a value engine that could also pull off an infinite combo.
This is exactly why Twin fostered a more interactive format, and why it was considered too good by WotC and by a lot of players. It was a combo that you HAD to be able to answer, but also fit into a shell that could run a lot of interactive spells itself. It could play both the combo game and the tempo/counterburn game at a very high level of efficiency. So much so, in fact, that the only reason to play a URx deck that wasn't Twin was if it could combo off faster than Twin could, like Storm did, at which point you had to worry about the issue of consistency - if your deck was too consistent at going off before Twin could, you could expect a ban, or if it specifically had a good Twin matchup - Grixis Delver, Jeskai Control, and RUG Scapeshift are all examples of 'UR decks with a decent Twin matchup', but against the rest of the field, they were more or less just flat out worse than Twin was.
All of this is sufficient reason, in my opinion, for Twin to have been banned, and for it to remain banned, even though I honestly don't give a s#$t any more; if they unban it, I'm fine, coz I play the cards they give me. However, for anyone to claim that Twin was unfairly banned or was only banned to "shake up the PT" are ignoring some of the key realities of what the format was like while Twin was legal; Twin forced a format that was interactive because it was itself an infinite combo deck that could also interact just as well as the interactive decks. The combo decks of today can't afford to run anywhere near as much interacting, and as such the whole "playing past your opponent" rather than interacting issue has arisen.
Just because Twin lead to more interactive games doesn't mean that it wasn't too good of a deck.
There IS no reliable data. Or at least the closest thing we have is aggregates of paper tournaments that are incredibly small snapshots, fairly far apart from each other, and rarely statistically relevant. Like I said, the data coming from MTGO is not even worthless, it is ACTIVELY misrepresentative because they do not allow for a true representation of the meta to be made known. In addition to cutting from 10 lists to 5, they went from 10 random lists to 5 lists which do not share cards between them. Let's look at an exaggerated example: If out of 100 5-0 Leagues on a given day, 96 of them were functionally the same deck (+/- a few flex slots and sideboard cards), but 4 random brews happened to spike the non-swiss, 5-round event, Wizards will post 5 different decklists. We will see 5 different lists and the aggregate websites will list these 5 decks as each representing 20% of the format from this sample size. But reality says that Deck A is ~96% of the meta and decks B-E are only 1% each. So this method of deck selection actively skews meta representations to LOOK more diverse than they actually are by lowering the numbers of top decks and raising numbers of low decks.
That's pretty much what this thread has been since Modern Nexus stopped making updates and we had to rely on automated cites like Goldfish and Top8. Since Wizards redacted any meaningful data, there's really nothing left but talking points.
When you only have three categories, you aren't really representing what's going on. Unless you think BGx and Affinity are basically the same deck. That doesn't even get into the numerous other erroneous listings such as "Delver" decks with no Delver, "Nahiri" decks with no Nahiri, "Scapeshift" decks with no Scapeshift, etc. Their naming system is sloppy because it's a combination of automated and user-generated. Mistakes everywhere and difficult to pull any meaningful conclusions from.
I would play Twin for the same reason I wouldn't play Grixis Control today: Grixis Control is a bad deck. I would also play Delver over Grixis Control. And Shadow over Grixis Control. The real question is would I play Twin over Shadow... and that's harder to answer, especially since Shadow would have an amazing matchup against Twin while still holding game against many other decks.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
On the subject of which deck of the two: Twin, and I'll give my reasons.
1) A solid wincon. Grixis has tried to find their wincon as a control deck, but other than a Cruel Ultimatum list, there hasn't been one defined one. Twin had a potential turn 4 win (though not advisable to use then) and used its tools to delay the game until it could land its haymaker.
2) Mana base price. May sound a bit odd, but card price matters especially when trying to get into the format. Trying to build a mana base is harder with three colors than two and without fetchlands (if you can't afford them) is even harder.
3) There are currently better Grixis Decks than control. No one will debate right now that Death's Shadow is the better Grixis deck, so why play a worse Grixis deck, or URx deck for that matter?
-------
On a sidenote, I don't think Twin will come back, given Wizards talk on "meta health". Still I see no problem discussing whether it was a part of a healthy environment during its time.
And I'm willing to try the post-ban UR Kiki list. The deck isn't as dead as some might think, it just lost a lot of its following post-twin ban.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sigpic.
Spider-Man Mafia 3 (Off-Site: NGA)
Metroid Mafia (Off-Site: Mafia Universe)
I like that advice, I think for now I'll drop Taxes for the IQ unless there becomes a more obvious point like when Shadow, Tron and Titanshift were heavily
expected.
I'm wary of the meta because I wonder if creature aggro and humans shows up in waves from last weeks Open. I'm not sure E-Tron can handle that humans deck
I honestly haven't had any truly bad days with Etron, except for like 1 FNM. The last PPTQ I just missed top 8. Felt bad too, because I honestly could only recall one mistake I made throughout the entire tournament and felt like I played pretty tight, and the mistake wasn't huge. On top of that, I won some truly bad matchups like Titanshift and Bant Eldrazi
@Shockwave07, I wasn't leaving any level event off the search. The majority of Magic players will be experiencing local tournaments, so I wanted to mainly include that data. I didn't want to leave out any other data, though, so I kept it as well. I figured that more data is just better. I personally have played in 2 GP's, 2 States events, and 1 Open, but due to work, etc., I typically play in my local metagame primarily.
Thanks for the answers on the Twin vs. Grixis Control choice. It wasn't too long ago that Grixis Control was actually doing quite well, up until Grixis Shadow took over and just became what seems like a strictly better version.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
What prominent voices in the community (articles, pros, tweets, etc) actually and legitimately thought Twin was too good and should be banned? Because it seems this work of fiction has been retroactively inserted into everyone's memories. Other than a joking satire article, I can't remember any large concerns or pitchforks and cries for its ban, especially when Bloom was public enemy #1 at the time and BGx/Affinity held such strong numbers. After the ban it was petrifying shock across the entire community.
One of the comments from that article above sums up my position on Twin nicely:
"Punish the twin deck because the other decks don't play enough "hate cards" such as spellskite to stop the combo? It's a dog eat dog world. If you're going to play modern, a format with powerful cards and combo's don't bring cute to the table and expect not to lose a few. As a former Twin hater I also use to think rats I'm dead on turn 4 every time I played it. Once you actually pilot the deck you see that often that's not the case. The real advantage of it is how much your opponent is forced to respect a turn 3 exarch even if you don't have the twin in hand."
That respect for the other player is completely gone in Modern. Your best strategy is often to completely disregard your opponent's plays and just jam your proactive plan as quickly as possible. I do NOT think that makes the format a better place.
As for all your other concerns, if those were actually included in the ban announcement, we could have a discussion. For essentially ALL the reasons Wizards wrote in words and published, the Twin ban was both a mistake and a failure.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
All the decks from 2016 that made it to top 8s. You will notice on further inspection that the 3% Grixis holds isn't even held solely by Grixis Control, but rather by both Grixis Control and Grixis Delver.
A year later...
http://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=477&meta=142&f=MO
...and nothing's breaking 2%.
As cfusionpm said, MTGTop8 is notorious for categorizing decks incorrectly, but in this case I believe the numbers are correct enough to show that URx decks after the Twin ban did not spike in popularity after the ban, implying that Splinter Twin being the best URx deck was not why those decks died out. Otherwise, we'd at least see something get somewhere close to Twin's metashares
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
However, looking at it more objectively now, I can see how Twin's presence could have a positive impact on the format. I made a whole other post about that over a week ago though. Here's a question for y'all though: How important is color diversity to you?
Of course there isn't. No other deck can kill on Turn 3.5 with extreme consistency while still dedicating a large chunk of the (23-27 cards) protecting its combo kill. Doesn't mean the deck is good for the format.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I stopped believing this thread would be anything but Twin the very moment the moratorium dropped.
But I prefer this. At least people can say what they're blatantly referring to, rather than playing chicken with the mods.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
See, comments like this are why we can't have honest conversations. It does not kill on "turn 3.5." It can kill on turn 4, at sorcery speed, during your combat step. And even that only happened naturally about 13-25% of the time, assuming your opponent did nothing to interact or pressure you into using your mana on something else, you hit all your land drops every turn, had RR available, and had both combo pieces. But at that point, if your opponent spends 4 turns ignoring you, they should either be winning themselves anyway or they absolutely deserve to lose.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
EDIT: To better clarify: You can either get the kill consistently (All-In Twin) or dedicate a large chunk of the cards to protecting the combo kill (Tempo Twin), but you can't have both.
Uh huh. Remember, this is the MTGS ban list thread. We don't talk about the turn you die. We talk about the turn the game is effectively over. So if they commit the horrible sin of tapping out on Turn 3, they die during that end step when Twin flashes in Exarch/Mite. It doesn't matter that they ACTUALLY lose the game on Turn 4 when a billion Exarchs/Mites hit. They died on Turn 3.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Yep. Twin was a pure control deck. Meanwhile, the litany of recent blue decks that run counter magic and Snapcaster Mage are "Aggro" or "Linear Mid-Range".
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
And what's the difference. 4 Twins instead of 3? The primary win-con is still the combo kill. And both can easily kill on Turn 3.5.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
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
The only distinction is that Twin does cast a combo piece at the end of the opponent's turn, but that doesn't make it "turn 3.5" any more than Ad Nauseam casting a Phyrexian Unlife on their third turn and then going off on the fourth makes it turn 3 just because it put out the first combo piece on that turn.