It has been a while since I attended a GP, but when I flunked out of the main event at the end of Day 1, I spent all of day 2 playing side events with my "secondary" decks. I salted out pretty hard over how my day 1 went and frankly wanted to play something completely different just to change it up. So yeah, you may run into a lot more "jank" in side events, but after spending months preparing and tuning for the event, I personally wanted to just have fun and try something completely oddball. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
The problem I have with twin in comparison to other blue controlling decks is its versatility, particularly after sideboard. Its a combo deck when you need to be a combo deck, its a controlling deck when it needs to be controlling and it is a tempo deck when it needs to be a tempo deck. Sure UW might side in Geist of Saint Traft but its never going to be fully aggro the way Twin can be. So control having a good match up against Twin doesn't make control good in comparison to it. Twin was a shifting sands of a deck a format with such diversity in strategies that is extremely powerful.
Banning twin didn't improve blue deck diversity compared to impact of Jace, Teferi and field of ruin.
Okay I am going to agree with you but I think reason for banning is actually lower bar than unbanning, particularly when the format is alright right now.
I thought the Jace unban was going to be a problem and I was wrong, I am just more adverse to unbanning of powerful cards not just because of their decks becoming too strong but how they can wrap the format around them. Twin is one of those decks... At the time of its banning it was "If you can't beat twin no point playing your deck." situation, it was what 8-9% of the format?
I didn't play twin but I did enjoy playing against it, but I played a fairly interactive deck and that's not true of everyone.
I am just more adverse to unbanning of powerful cards not just because of their decks becoming too strong but how they can wrap the format around them. Twin is one of those decks... At the time of its banning it was "If you can't beat twin no point playing your deck."
Every good deck does this. Even today, do you build a deck without Affinity, Humans, or Tron in mind? Do you build or tune a deck ignoring Storm? Jeskai? Burn? Hollow One?
This criticism of Twin has always been by far one of the weakest; especially considering that many of these decks required specific, narrow, targeted hate. Twin was disrupted by any number of main deck answers (discard, counters, creature removal) and had a hard time dealing with it when backed by a reasonable clock. If you were playing a deck that simply avoided any of those forms of interaction, you deserve to lose to any number of the top decks at any time in the format.
I am just more adverse to unbanning of powerful cards not just because of their decks becoming too strong but how they can wrap the format around them. Twin is one of those decks... At the time of its banning it was "If you can't beat twin no point playing your deck."
Every good deck does this. Even today, do you build a deck without Affinity, Humans, or Tron in mind? Do you build or tune a deck ignoring Storm? Jeskai? Burn? Hollow One?
This criticism of Twin has always been by far one of the weakest; especially considering that many of these decks required specific, narrow, targeted hate. Twin was disrupted by any number of main deck answers (discard, counters, creature removal) and had a hard time dealing with it when backed by a reasonable clock. If you were playing a deck that simply avoided any of those forms of interaction, you deserve to lose to any number of the top decks at any time in the format.
I agree entirely on this point. I also used twin as the standard for comparison when I was brewing a new deck. My mindset was if my new deck couldn't beat twin it needed to be reworked or not played. But after twin that deck was eldrazi and today that standard is humans imo. And after humans it will be some other deck. I know eldrazi needed a ban and bringing it up in this comparison could hurt my argument here, but my point is there is always a best deck or a small group of best decks that you have to prepare for or it will beat you. Every teir deck warps the meta to various extents. Twin was a good deck, but their were lots of other good decks and there are other good decks today.
Yeah I'm going to have to agree here. It's like people think twin was this unique thing that couldn't be answered. It lost to Jund. It lost to other control decks. And now it's got "new" players like Burn, Grixis DS, Mardu, etc. to deal with while also losing some great matchups like Infect to a large degree.
The question with twin is more "is it strong enough to warp the format around it" and not "you have to consider it when deckbuilding". I consider most good decks when deckbuilding.
The way I see Tron is that Damping Sphere has, in the short existence of the card, done work, and I've been both against and on G-Tron. There's a whole host of other cards that damage Tron lands and bump them off turns. However effective this hate can be, it doesn't seem to be brought in the density required to actually beat Tron in a meaningful way. With such a wide list of decks to try to sideboard for, Tron seems to require a higher density than people are anticipating and thus even though they are bringing 2-3 cards in to represent hate, they are insufficient.
In a wide meta, I think Tron rises not just due to it's general strategy, but because you need more than just some light hate to stop them. You need some actual density. That's why Humans does well, between Booter, Meddling Mage, and Image redundancy the deck comes stocked with clocks that also disrupt, but more than that, it's a constant flow of it. Then they can bring more hate G2/3.
Damping Sphere is just as good (or bad) as Blood Moon against Tron. It's not a silver bullet by any means. Their lands still tap for mana and they will eventually cast their things. You still need to have a quick clock or you'll just lose to hard-cast 6, 7, 8, and 10 drops.
Good to see this is still the "Unban Twin discussion/Control players complain about Tron" thread. All is right in the world.
Not complaining, just saying reality. Damping Sphere was supposed to be some savior hate for Tron and it's not. Anyone with a bad Tron matchup could have told you that. It can help, but it's certainly no Stony Silence against Affinity.
Alpine Moon is just as bad and will have similarly mediocre effects.
Which brings us right back to banning Ancient Stirrings, since all the hate has been ineffective.
Ineffective in doing what exactly? You want a single card that completely nerfs the deck on it's own? That's not realistic to expect. I don't understand why the vocal control players in here can't just accept that their deck has a bad matchup against Tron and live with it. Every deck has good and bad matchups. That's Magic.
Good to see this is still the "Unban Twin discussion/Control players complain about Tron" thread. All is right in the world.
Not complaining, just saying reality. Damping Sphere was supposed to be some savior hate for Tron and it's not. Anyone with a bad Tron matchup could have told you that. It can help, but it's certainly no Stony Silence against Affinity.
Alpine Moon is just as bad and will have similarly mediocre effects.
Which brings us right back to banning Ancient Stirrings, since all the hate has been ineffective.
Need the hate to be an indestructible artifact or enchantment... Turn off their nature's claim
The hate being on color doesn't matter a whole lot, since they run cantrips to filter and draw into an untapped green source and nature's claim or o stone relatively quickly. Dampening sphere is fine, but like people said. It needs a fast clock to go with it and the hands you want to keep with sphere doesn't really mean u can sphere + put a huge clock on t3.
Dampening sphere also affecting how you play the game doesn't help either. We just need more spreading seas like card that cantrips itself and cost 2 cmc. This directly affects them and shuts off Tron lands while leaving up for counterplay to still draw nature's claim. The difference is you not only cantrip, you can still play out your game plan while not be directly inhibited by your own SB card.
Ineffective in doing what exactly? You want a single card that completely nerfs the deck on it's own? That's not realistic to expect. I don't understand why the vocal control players in here can't just accept that their deck has a bad matchup against Tron and live with it. Every deck has good and bad matchups. That's Magic.
Yep. In response to most of those.
People want a way to hose Tron, similar to ways to hose Affinity. Or like Choke, or Boil.
Its not going to happen, but that is what people are looking for. Tron is more effective than non-grinders want to admit, I think you prove that.
EDIT: In a change of subject, anyone else getting run over by that Whir/ThopterSword/KCI deck? Seems crazy good.
I'm not asking for more better Tron hate. I think we have plenty. I think what we have is very effective. Often times it comes down to having paired a Nature's Claim to the hate card, or keeping a marginal 7 with a hate piece and are ineffective until they start bombing you anyway. In my earlier post I'm putting the onus on the anti-Tron crowd to bring more hate and disruption if they really dislike Tron. I don't think this is a situation for WotC to step in and make hands on adjustments. Not in the least.
I really think that if the format narrowed a bit and we had better meta data than what WotC is willing to let us see, then Tron would not be such a tyrant with the hate that is available, and not because the data would immediately show otherwise but because the format would focus and move on the big players more readily. Which is to say that I think to beat Tron, consistently, you need to bring a better density and variety of hate and disruption instead of relying seeing one hate piece in your opener. Bringing those cards to bare is the responsibility of the non-Tron player.
^Yes exactly. Six copies of Damping Sphere in the top 32 of Vegas doesn’t show the failings of the hate, it shows that Tron was underestimated and dodged the hate.
That's insane. I think that's the biggest problem with Modern; you literally never know what to expect, so you can't really metagame a large unknown event. That's my biggest complaint.
This is exactly why Pro's hate playing it, and people love watching it.
Back to the entire Win/Matchup %'s. Some of them I disagree with that keep getting presented, it completely confronts my spreadsheet over the last 2 years. I honestly have some match-ups nearing 80/20. They don't cross hairs often, but my sample size is pretty decent. Generally the matchups I found that deviate from the 65-35 range always involve fast mana. These cards include Simian Spirit Guide, Mox Opal, Urza Lands, and Eldrazi Temple. The first two are bigger defectors than the latter, significantly. There are almost 7x larger (6.7 to be exact) lop-sided matchups in my spreadsheet for Mox Opal and Simian Spirit Guide than Urza Lands and Eldrazi Temple. In a somewhat noticeable pattern, Street Wraith is a card that makes some matchups more lopsided in the same vein as Urza Lands and Eldrazi Temple.
Now I understand some of these decks are just "50/50" decks against the field when you add in the masses of people playing decks across time, but that doesn't mean that those matches are in complete control, because they are not. There is nothing good about KCI going off Turn 3 because of multiple Opals, or Living End being cast on turn 2 from SSG, or Goryo's Vengeance being cast turn 1. A turn two Thought-Knot Seer is back breaking enough for most decks to never see the light of day in Modern.
Here lies the fundamental issue; we can't really ban these cards without a huge segregation. I honestly believe that if we banned Urza Lands and Temple there would be a worse exodus then the Birthing Pod/Splinter Twin defection from the game. Fast Mana needs to exist with Free Counter Magic, and we see the issue with that in the format of Legacy, where too many decks get suppressed without being forced to deal with both ends of the spectrum. Yet in a perfect world, I still have a vision where Modern adds SSG and Mox Opal to the banned list, and everyone in the format remains level headed.
Here's why I defend Tron, despite never playing it (well at least not the fast green versions):
Tron isn't invincible. It has 50/50 matchups. It has bad matchups. The people who complain about tron are the ones who like decks with bad matchups aka control and midrange players. They want control and midrange, and this describes most of my local meta, to be coin flip decks against the entire field. That this one known archetype exists that rolls those decks hard destroys that goal. So the calls for bans exist, in my opinion, solely for the junds and jeskais and mardus of the world to get what they want: no matchup where they are a major underdog. That isn't a format goal, that's an individual goal. Modern shouldn't create a banlist based around the personal goals of certain players.
Nobody shows up here playing tron demanding a ban on grapeshot. They get it.
again i have to disagree that its only midrange and control players who complain. i dont think its unreasonable to believe that players of all stripes prefer if there were fewer 'non-games' within the format. there are already enough games where a deck might fail to function because of variance, but if you add on top of this the small, but not insignificant, number of games where players just roll over one another with nut draws it just generates a feeling of helplessness. ive certainly heard my fair share of combo or aggro/combo players express their unhappiness when matches are over far too quickly with few decisions being made on both sides of the table.
there are certain elements, such as fast mana like @Shmanka pointed out, that are better at creating these extremely lopsided games; and there are a dearth of options to punish those who would go all in with no fear of reprisal.
this isnt to say that decks that can cheat on generating resources or advantages (aka 'unfair' decks) shouldnt exist or be allowed to be a good choice to play; because i think they are an important aspect of the game/format. however i also think there isnt anything wrong with thinking that if there was less of it, or having better tools to fight against it, wouldnt benefit the long term health of the format.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I think Alpine Moon will have a big impact on Tron decks. The difference between 2 mana and 1 mana hate is not insignificant
Also, I tend to sympathize with the Jund, Jeskai, and Mardu decks of the world since they represent the interactive decks in modern. Personally, these are the types of matchups I enjoy the most and I think a lot of players do as well. It's better than the "two ships passing in the night" phenomena we get with many modern decks
I think Alpine Moon will have a big impact on Tron decks. The difference between 2 mana and 1 mana hate is not insignificant
Also, I tend to sympathize with the Jund, Jeskai, and Mardu decks of the world since they represent the interactive decks in modern. Personally, these are the types of matchups I enjoy the most and I think a lot of players do as well. It's better than the "two ships passing in the night" phenomena we get with many modern decks
Here's why I defend Tron, despite never playing it (well at least not the fast green versions):
Tron isn't invincible. It has 50/50 matchups. It has bad matchups. The people who complain about tron are the ones who like decks with bad matchups aka control and midrange players. They want control and midrange, and this describes most of my local meta, to be coin flip decks against the entire field. That this one known archetype exists that rolls those decks hard destroys that goal. So the calls for bans exist, in my opinion, solely for the junds and jeskais and mardus of the world to get what they want: no matchup where they are a major underdog. That isn't a format goal, that's an individual goal. Modern shouldn't create a banlist based around the personal goals of certain players.
Nobody shows up here playing tron demanding a ban on grapeshot. They get it.
I agree with almost every word, but I had to laugh out loud at the last bit. I AM a Tron player who comes in here saying Grapeshot should be looked at for a ban.......but it's because I want to play with Preordain in my jank Delver deck, it has nothing to do with Tron, I just pack a bucket of Storm hate in there
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I think Alpine Moon will have a big impact on Tron decks. The difference between 2 mana and 1 mana hate is not insignificant
Also, I tend to sympathize with the Jund, Jeskai, and Mardu decks of the world since they represent the interactive decks in modern. Personally, these are the types of matchups I enjoy the most and I think a lot of players do as well. It's better than the "two ships passing in the night" phenomena we get with many modern decks
I don't think it is better. It is boring.
Its such a weird take to me. I had a game yesterday, my opponent could not interact with me, I did literally nothing but cantrip and play lands for 4 turns as there was zero threat to me.
Turn 5 I Breach Emrakul and win.
Thats not boring to you? People can play linear decks, they can play big mana, they can play combo, but if they have no ability to interact, I fail to see how more interaction (midrange/control) is more 'boring' than a couple of goldfish.
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Okay I am going to agree with you but I think reason for banning is actually lower bar than unbanning, particularly when the format is alright right now.
I thought the Jace unban was going to be a problem and I was wrong, I am just more adverse to unbanning of powerful cards not just because of their decks becoming too strong but how they can wrap the format around them. Twin is one of those decks... At the time of its banning it was "If you can't beat twin no point playing your deck." situation, it was what 8-9% of the format?
I didn't play twin but I did enjoy playing against it, but I played a fairly interactive deck and that's not true of everyone.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Every good deck does this. Even today, do you build a deck without Affinity, Humans, or Tron in mind? Do you build or tune a deck ignoring Storm? Jeskai? Burn? Hollow One?
This criticism of Twin has always been by far one of the weakest; especially considering that many of these decks required specific, narrow, targeted hate. Twin was disrupted by any number of main deck answers (discard, counters, creature removal) and had a hard time dealing with it when backed by a reasonable clock. If you were playing a deck that simply avoided any of those forms of interaction, you deserve to lose to any number of the top decks at any time in the format.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I agree entirely on this point. I also used twin as the standard for comparison when I was brewing a new deck. My mindset was if my new deck couldn't beat twin it needed to be reworked or not played. But after twin that deck was eldrazi and today that standard is humans imo. And after humans it will be some other deck. I know eldrazi needed a ban and bringing it up in this comparison could hurt my argument here, but my point is there is always a best deck or a small group of best decks that you have to prepare for or it will beat you. Every teir deck warps the meta to various extents. Twin was a good deck, but their were lots of other good decks and there are other good decks today.
The question with twin is more "is it strong enough to warp the format around it" and not "you have to consider it when deckbuilding". I consider most good decks when deckbuilding.
Also, to the 2 or so people claiming Damping Sphere "failed". It's currently the 11th most played card in Modern. Because it hits tron, storm, and KCI. Turns out flex hate in sides is OK. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
Modern GPs are about having a read on the meta and responding at the next level. People failed to tech against Tron
Tech, or Deck? The whole issue is that the 'tech' is not sufficiently punishing, if the deck is not fast enough to make it matter.
Spirits
In a wide meta, I think Tron rises not just due to it's general strategy, but because you need more than just some light hate to stop them. You need some actual density. That's why Humans does well, between Booter, Meddling Mage, and Image redundancy the deck comes stocked with clocks that also disrupt, but more than that, it's a constant flow of it. Then they can bring more hate G2/3.
"Reveal a Dragon"
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Spirits
Not complaining, just saying reality. Damping Sphere was supposed to be some savior hate for Tron and it's not. Anyone with a bad Tron matchup could have told you that. It can help, but it's certainly no Stony Silence against Affinity.
Alpine Moon is just as bad and will have similarly mediocre effects.
Which brings us right back to banning Ancient Stirrings, since all the hate has been ineffective.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Need the hate to be an indestructible artifact or enchantment... Turn off their nature's claim
Or just wait for WotC to print it on a creature.
Dampening sphere also affecting how you play the game doesn't help either. We just need more spreading seas like card that cantrips itself and cost 2 cmc. This directly affects them and shuts off Tron lands while leaving up for counterplay to still draw nature's claim. The difference is you not only cantrip, you can still play out your game plan while not be directly inhibited by your own SB card.
Yep. In response to most of those.
People want a way to hose Tron, similar to ways to hose Affinity. Or like Choke, or Boil.
Its not going to happen, but that is what people are looking for. Tron is more effective than non-grinders want to admit, I think you prove that.
EDIT: In a change of subject, anyone else getting run over by that Whir/ThopterSword/KCI deck? Seems crazy good.
Spirits
I really think that if the format narrowed a bit and we had better meta data than what WotC is willing to let us see, then Tron would not be such a tyrant with the hate that is available, and not because the data would immediately show otherwise but because the format would focus and move on the big players more readily. Which is to say that I think to beat Tron, consistently, you need to bring a better density and variety of hate and disruption instead of relying seeing one hate piece in your opener. Bringing those cards to bare is the responsibility of the non-Tron player.
"Reveal a Dragon"
This is exactly why Pro's hate playing it, and people love watching it.
Back to the entire Win/Matchup %'s. Some of them I disagree with that keep getting presented, it completely confronts my spreadsheet over the last 2 years. I honestly have some match-ups nearing 80/20. They don't cross hairs often, but my sample size is pretty decent. Generally the matchups I found that deviate from the 65-35 range always involve fast mana. These cards include Simian Spirit Guide, Mox Opal, Urza Lands, and Eldrazi Temple. The first two are bigger defectors than the latter, significantly. There are almost 7x larger (6.7 to be exact) lop-sided matchups in my spreadsheet for Mox Opal and Simian Spirit Guide than Urza Lands and Eldrazi Temple. In a somewhat noticeable pattern, Street Wraith is a card that makes some matchups more lopsided in the same vein as Urza Lands and Eldrazi Temple.
Now I understand some of these decks are just "50/50" decks against the field when you add in the masses of people playing decks across time, but that doesn't mean that those matches are in complete control, because they are not. There is nothing good about KCI going off Turn 3 because of multiple Opals, or Living End being cast on turn 2 from SSG, or Goryo's Vengeance being cast turn 1. A turn two Thought-Knot Seer is back breaking enough for most decks to never see the light of day in Modern.
Here lies the fundamental issue; we can't really ban these cards without a huge segregation. I honestly believe that if we banned Urza Lands and Temple there would be a worse exodus then the Birthing Pod/Splinter Twin defection from the game. Fast Mana needs to exist with Free Counter Magic, and we see the issue with that in the format of Legacy, where too many decks get suppressed without being forced to deal with both ends of the spectrum. Yet in a perfect world, I still have a vision where Modern adds SSG and Mox Opal to the banned list, and everyone in the format remains level headed.
Tron isn't invincible. It has 50/50 matchups. It has bad matchups. The people who complain about tron are the ones who like decks with bad matchups aka control and midrange players. They want control and midrange, and this describes most of my local meta, to be coin flip decks against the entire field. That this one known archetype exists that rolls those decks hard destroys that goal. So the calls for bans exist, in my opinion, solely for the junds and jeskais and mardus of the world to get what they want: no matchup where they are a major underdog. That isn't a format goal, that's an individual goal. Modern shouldn't create a banlist based around the personal goals of certain players.
Nobody shows up here playing tron demanding a ban on grapeshot. They get it.
there are certain elements, such as fast mana like @Shmanka pointed out, that are better at creating these extremely lopsided games; and there are a dearth of options to punish those who would go all in with no fear of reprisal.
this isnt to say that decks that can cheat on generating resources or advantages (aka 'unfair' decks) shouldnt exist or be allowed to be a good choice to play; because i think they are an important aspect of the game/format. however i also think there isnt anything wrong with thinking that if there was less of it, or having better tools to fight against it, wouldnt benefit the long term health of the format.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Also, I tend to sympathize with the Jund, Jeskai, and Mardu decks of the world since they represent the interactive decks in modern. Personally, these are the types of matchups I enjoy the most and I think a lot of players do as well. It's better than the "two ships passing in the night" phenomena we get with many modern decks
I don't think it is better. It is boring.
I agree with almost every word, but I had to laugh out loud at the last bit. I AM a Tron player who comes in here saying Grapeshot should be looked at for a ban.......but it's because I want to play with Preordain in my jank Delver deck, it has nothing to do with Tron, I just pack a bucket of Storm hate in there
Its such a weird take to me. I had a game yesterday, my opponent could not interact with me, I did literally nothing but cantrip and play lands for 4 turns as there was zero threat to me.
Turn 5 I Breach Emrakul and win.
Thats not boring to you? People can play linear decks, they can play big mana, they can play combo, but if they have no ability to interact, I fail to see how more interaction (midrange/control) is more 'boring' than a couple of goldfish.
Spirits