UW can attack their mana in a way mostly unique to the top decks, while also wiping the board with a single W. At that point its very hard for them to come back against a resolved Jace/Teferi.
If the Humans player is able to disrupt enough however, they have the clock needed to just win by turning their disruption sideways.
This is exactly how I felt theoretically about the matchup. But since it's just my theory and not founded on any testing, I am unsure.
I am guessing that the statistics that showed Humans to be favored in the matchup is probably just a small sample size and shows the abundant variance of Modern. I'm assuming that if 1,000s of matches were recorded with pilots of equal play skill, then UW may approach the 55% win rate vs. Humans? (hypothetical question unless someone here HAS done that many)
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Assassin's Trophy makes me consider playing Jund death shadow intead of Grixis. Or maybe 4-colours shadow, that was briefly played. The fact that it can hit land at two mana makes it a replacement (or addition) to field of ruin. Time to dust off my traverse the ulvenwald. Traverse incidentally is good against blood moon and field by letting you grab the singleton basics of your deck.
Assassin's Trophy makes me consider playing Jund death shadow intead of Grixis. Or maybe 4-colours shadow, that was briefly played. The fact that it can hit land at two mana makes it a replacement (or addition) to field of ruin. Time to dust off my traverse the ulvenwald. Traverse incidentally is good against blood moon and field by letting you grab the singleton basics of your deck.
You should read the article by mtgsalvation user shmanka about Jund Shadow. He had me convinced, although obviously I'd have to do some testing too (let's say he convinced me to test).
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)
It would drive out entirely all of the interesting "unfair" decks I enjoy playing with, as it would be the best "unfair" deck. Why play Quest Combo or Belcher EVER if Twin exists?
Twin changes nothing for decks like that, they're already unplayable from a competitive standpoint. Adding Twin to the format can't make a deck that's already unplayable even less playable. What Twin does do is make top tier uninteractive linear decks less desirable to play, and interactive decks more desirable. If you had a player on the fence between playing Hollow One or GBx for a tournament, he might land on Hollow One without Twin in the format, but maybe he plays GBx instead if Twin is legal. You can still play Hollow One in the Twin format if you want, but maybe they start running some of their sideboard interaction in the main to hedge against Twin game 1. Or maybe you just stay focused and linear and hope to dodge Twin. It makes those decks less desirable, but not unplayable.
The dream of the Brewer is that no one has tuned those decks correctly so that they ARE playable from a competitive standpoint. I've been testing the Belcher variant that one guy posted on Reddit, saying he's 20-4 in matches this past month, and it's pretty dang good. Gkouru is pretty spot-on, though, in saying that Humans is the new "fair" Twin by making these decks very difficult to play with Meddling Mage and Freebooter forcing you to interact or get trampled to death. They just don't have a 2-card "I win" button that makes them a better version of Belcher; instead, they police the format and cleanup a lot of the silly, degenerate decks a bit more while not being the best degenerate deck. I much prefer things this way, personally.
With Twin in the format, why would I even brew degenerate decks at all? Does it matter if I brew up the next Cheeri0s deck? No, because it'll still never be better than Twin.
I never thought I would see the day where people are citing decks that go against wotc's stated goals of the format as a reason to keep twin banned but here we are. I personally found it much easy and much more enjoyable to brew with twin in the format. It was something you had to account for but so is any deck that sees competitive play. Its worth mentioning that these unfair brews were bad with twin and bad without twin in the format.
Twin unban talk returns! Maybe one day we'll see the vocal Twin defenders stop the crusade, but I have my doubts. The goal posts keep shifting whenever a previous goal post is attained, so I don't think anything short of the actual Twin unban itself is going to satisfy Twin proponents. First they wanted a viable blue deck in Modern's top-tier. GDS and Jeskai came around but the playstyle was allegedly wrong, the decks (to paraphrase) "weren't viable enough," they weren't "truly" top-tier, etc. Then they wanted a viable controlling deck in Modern's top-tier. UW Control is clearly that but now some Twin players are refocusing on wanting a viable UR deck (and GDS/Jeskai still don't cut it). Then it was wanting a viable police deck in Modern that slowed down the rest of the format. Humans meets that definition, but again, some Twin defenders are unhappy that it's not the specific blue tempo/combo deck that they want. This returns me to the theory, which Teysa K stated in the last few months, about how the Twin defenders won't ever be satisfied until they can blue UR tempo/combo police decks with 4 cmc enchantments and two-card combos. I.e. until the card is unbanned. I agree that anyone who is STILL arguing about Twin when it's 2.5-3 years later is probably never going to be satisfied until the card is unbanned. I just never see the Twin defenders trying new approaches to that unbanning argument. Instead, they default to the tired arguments they have continued to try for 2.5-3 years.
There are so many more interesting Modern topics. Why not discuss those instead of regressing to the mean of Twin defense talk, especially when it's the same 2-3 people always swinging the thread back in that direction? We can talk about win-rates, metagame shares, Play Design's impact on Guilds, other unbans like GSZ, Arena and MTGO considerations, etc. I think many people even prefer this new direction of discussing countermagic options, because it's at least something new and interesting that might overlap with current Play Design conversations and thinking.
As GK said earlier, there will be no strong 2 CMC counterspells while Teferi exists in Standard. The good news is that they might exist post-Teferi. See Opt being deliberately excluded from sets where Jeskai Ascendancy was Standard-legal, and see Opt returning after that card was gone. Given that R&D had a serious Counterspell conversation, I expect we'll see it in the next few years much like we saw Opt after a similar serious conversation.
The twin ban is the most controversial ban in all of magic and the deck had a large following of players. I'm not arguing for its ban or unban but it makes sense that discussions around it keep popping up.
I would love to discuss a gsz unban though as I believe it is the most unbannable card on the ban list and the card gets a unwarranted bad rap. The card has never been dominate in any format and was banned early on in modern when the format was incredibly turbulent and doesn't even resemble current modern. To me cards that were banned in 2011 are in the same camp as cards that were never legal in the format. During its brief stint in modern gsz saw most of its play in zoo and 12 post, neither are part of the modern meta game anymore. Its worth noting that pod decks were around back then and opted to play chord over gsz. The reason the DCI gave for banning gsz was to increase diversity among green decks. In my opinion this has failed, as the green decks we have now are mostly company decks and scapeshift. It is hard to gauge the effect the ban has had due to the card being banned so early in the format so we just dont know if it had any impact on diversity of green decks. Green decks particularly green creature decks of the fair variety, decks were gsz sees most or would see most of its play (think gw value town, zoo, little kid abzan ) are struggling or have been completely pushed out of the format. Gsz also has a bunch of competition now so unbanning it could increase diversity among green decks. if you want to combo with creatures chord, eldritch evolution and summoners pact are all better options. Yes gsz is good turn 1 with dryad arbor, yes its good midgame, yes its good late game but cards being good at various stages of the game isn't a reason to ban or keep cards banned. I mean by that logic opt could be banned. Ask yourself when have green creature decks ever been too good or even just good in any non rotating format the ones that comes to mind was 2012 legacy maverick where it was just a good deck and pod decks in modern but i think we can all agree that pod was the issue there.
I never thought I would see the day where people are citing decks that go against wotc's stated goals of the format as a reason to keep twin banned but here we are. I personally found it much easy and much more enjoyable to brew with twin in the format. It was something you had to account for but so is any deck that sees competitive play. Its worth mentioning that these unfair brews were bad with twin and bad without twin in the format.
They don't reliably kill before Turn 4, so I don't really see the issue. Grishoalbrand can kill Turn 1, no issues according to WotC, so...
EDIT: I'm going to have to walk away for a bit, as this "I don't want to lose all of my toys simply so that you can have your one toy back again." is so tilting I feel a need to scream out my window.
I, lost something. You gained, nothing. Its like all the Eldrazi decks still kicking around pissing me off by simply existing while I had to lose my deck.
Wow, I really didn't mean to make this a personal thing, id. Apologies for creating this kind of frustration; let's just say I was dead wrong about Jace, and I could be completely wrong here. I'll be the first to admit that my own bias is obviously the crux of the argument, not the "Health of the Format."
issue remains that those decks do go against wotc's stated goal of the format and reliable pre turn 4 kills has never been defined in any non arbitrary way. Again the belchers and cheerios of modern were bad with twin and bad without it.
3 years of back and forth battle of Twin debate. 3 years is almost as long as World War 2.
Have just gotten used to it at some point... so it's not really taxing to look at anymore. The meta changes often, so who knows.. someday it might be indeed time to unban Twin.
There will never be a 'time' to unban Twin as there will never be a need for a Tempo/Control/Combo deck to come in and save us. To imply as much (not saying you or, but its not something I PERSONALLY do either) would be to say that one style of deck is inherently better than others and that is NOT what I am saying.
People play Value Town. I hate it.
People play Tron. I hate it.
People play BGx. I dont care for it.
People play Storm. I dont care for it.
People play Eldrazi and Taxes. I hate it, AND THEM.
Twin will not solve anything, however it remains the only deck that was completely removed from viability, and no Kiki Blue Moon is not viable its the worst freaking build of the deck and its not close, as Jund still exists, Toolbox/CoCo/GW Combo decks still exist (and are actually one of the best decks around based on ktk's findings) Eldrazi filth still exists, Storm STILL after 14172 ban's STILL exists, and even the dreaded EGGS is back in KCI, and Amulet still is around, while Dredge still exists as well.
Only Twin, needed to be nuked from orbit, no other deck died on the operating table, as the result of a ban, to the degree in which Twin did, and that is factual.
So lets look at the facts.
1. The ban did not accomplish its goal of increasing diversity. The math has been done, this is not up for discussion.
2. The deck was not oppressive. The meta was as diverse then, as it is now.
3. The deck was not preventing other Blue decks from existing. It took THREE YEARS for new cards to be printed in enough power to be impactful on the meta.
4. The deck was banned on a false pretense. Wizards is ON RECORD as not testing for ban/unban announcements. TO THIS DAY.
Twin never comes off, it has no need, other than for all the people who would drop whatever garbage we are playing (in comparison) and go back to the deck that should rightfully have never left.
Then again, did Grave Troll really need to be unbanned?
Ah, sorry I probably deleted my post last night as you were quoting it. I thought people might be offended by the WW2 joke.
Well, I'm at least glad you are don't hate people playing BGx.
From memory, I think someone mentioned years ago that Twin got banned to allow the new Eldrazi to enter Modern. People were trying out clunky decks that tried to use Blight Herder and other large eldrazi from Battle of Zendikar. Then Oath of Gate watch came with TKS and Smasher to make Eldrazi decks almost unstoppable - they only calmed down after eye got banned. Well, the eldrazi suffered a ban too.. although not enough to nuke them from orbit.
Anyway, its a Modern double header this weekend, GP Stockholm, and SCGames Open are both Modern. I dont predict much of a shake up right now, I dont think anyone kicks down Tron/KCI/UW/Humans/Hollow One until the next set is released.
I honestly don't see much in the way of Hollow One placing; all of my testing with the "solved" decklist that everyone uses has been very underwhelming. Not enough interaction, too much durdling with trying to get free Hollow Ones instead of curving out and burning your opponent down.
I agree, I've always been of the opinion its (Hollow One) a 'bad' deck, but I feel I'm mostly alone in that. People keep playing it, and it continues to see success, but I dont see it as a 'top' good deck.
I honestly don't see much in the way of Hollow One placing; all of my testing with the "solved" decklist that everyone uses has been very underwhelming. Not enough interaction, too much durdling with trying to get free Hollow Ones instead of curving out and burning your opponent down.
The random aspect is what made me not build the deck. Removed the hollow ones, flame blades from my SCG cart when realized the lottery aspect.
However, I guess the results indicate that Hollow One is really a strong deck.. consistent enough to do well in tournaments.
1. The ban did not accomplish its goal of increasing diversity. The math has been done, this is not up for discussion.
2. The deck was not oppressive. The meta was as diverse then, as it is now.
3. The deck was not preventing other Blue decks from existing. It took THREE YEARS for new cards to be printed in enough power to be impactful on the meta.
4. The deck was banned on a false pretense. Wizards is ON RECORD as not testing for ban/unban announcements. TO THIS DAY.
Twin never comes off, it has no need, other than for all the people who would drop whatever garbage we are playing (in comparison) and go back to the deck that should rightfully have never left.
These all may be true statements. Unfortunately, this has never been the rationale Wizards uses to unban a card. They simply re-analyze old ban rationale in light of the current metagame and decide as to whether or not an unban will benefit or harm net diversity. No Twin defender to my knowledge has successfully argued in any objective way that a Twin ban will benefit diversity. The evidence suggests it will probably have a net neutral effect, rendering some decks worse and others better. Wizards has never unbanned that kind of card before. They have solely unbanned cards to help out struggling archetypes. If I've missed some of those objective, pro-Twin arguments, I apologize for doing so and would love to see them. Until that's accomplished, I don't know why we keep revisiting it with the same old tired rhetorical approaches. It's doubly problematic because many Twin defenders are, often by their own admission, too personally invested in the argument to make objective cases. This just drives more people away from supporting Twin, even if the Twin defenders may have an argument they could make which would garner more support.
**On another note, I always hear about UW Control being the number 1 factor in the (minor) demise of Humans recently. But the stats that ktkenshinx showed from GPs and Opens showed UW having a less than 45% win rate vs. Humans. I personally don't know the matchup. I actually plan to play UW Control after I win a PPTQ soon hopefully with something else. But does anyone know why and in which way UW Control has helped quell Humans somewhat? Is this just something wrong I'm hearing or my old ears are failing me?
I have dramatically increased N on that sample by adding SCG Opens. That matchup N is now 70 (the overall match N is 20,000), and the new percentage is 49.3% in favor of Humans. I have an even bigger N for the Jeskai vs. Humans matchup at about 90, and that matchup is 54.7% in Jeskai's favor.
I feel like Jund will still be the best. Assasin's Trophy swamps in for Terminate/Dreadbore easily and Bloodbraid/Kologhans Command are just so back breaking.
I think Jund remains very strong and proactive, but also think we will see a significant amount of Abzan due to the power of Stony Silence. Maindeck Trophy really allows you to go all-in on backbreaing white-based SB hate for key bad matchups, and Abzan does that much better than Jund. But I do think Jund will see comparatively more play, just because it's a more obvious adoption.
issue remains that those decks do go against wotc's stated goal of the format and reliable pre turn 4 kills has never been defined in any non arbitrary way. Again the belchers and cheerios of modern were bad with twin and bad without it.
This is not how the T4 rule works. It has never been how it works. The rule states that TOP-TIER decks cannot CONSISTENTLY win before T4. Notably, this is modeled on what Wizards calls the T3 rule in Legacy, in which TOP-TIER decks cannot CONSISTENTLY win before T3. In both formats, there are decks that are capable of winning before T4 and T3 respectively. But neither of those formats see decks do so consistently or in the top-tier. There is no inconsistency in how Wizards enforces this rule if one actually reads the rule and then critically analyzes deck performance.
I agree, I've always been of the opinion its (Hollow One) a 'bad' deck, but I feel I'm mostly alone in that. People keep playing it, and it continues to see success, but I dont see it as a 'top' good deck.
Tron, UW, and Humans are my big 3.
H1 is not a random deck and it is a good deck. Anecdotally, I can confirm this from my own experience and the success of Mike Sigrist and Owen Turtenwald on the archetype: these players do not mess around with bad decks, especially Sigrist. Quantitatively, the deck sees too much high-level play to be bad. I will say that it's not the best deck in Modern: in my matchup sample, H1 has an MWP of 49.8% with 472 matches recorded. But that's about even with Burn, GDS, Jeskai Control, Bogles, and Infect.
These all may be true statements. Unfortunately, this has never been the rationale Wizards uses to unban a card. They simply re-analyze old ban rationale in light of the current metagame and decide as to whether or not an unban will benefit or harm net diversity. No Twin defender to my knowledge has successfully argued in any objective way that a Twin ban will benefit diversity. The evidence suggests it will probably have a net neutral effect, rendering some decks worse and others better. Wizards has never unbanned that kind of card before. They have solely unbanned cards to help out struggling archetypes. If I've missed some of those objective, pro-Twin arguments, I apologize for doing so and would love to see them. Until that's accomplished, I don't know why we keep revisiting it with the same old tired rhetorical approaches. It's doubly problematic because many Twin defenders are, often by their own admission, too personally invested in the argument to make objective cases. This just drives more people away from supporting Twin, even if the Twin defenders may have an argument they could make which would garner more support.
It will not be a benefit, at best it will be a net neutral, as just like with UW's rise, we saw UWR's fall, we would see the same cannibalization of meta share out of the 'Blue Control' pool.
These all would see their share fall. Blue Moon would disappear completely (I would think) and would be the basis for the new UR Twin meta Share. That say's nothing of the actual spikes (I'm not one) who are currently on Humans, or Mardu, or Hollow One, or Tron, who would jump to what was once the 'best deck' similar to how UW is the 'best deck' now.
In the end though, as we have shown, Top 8 Diversity would be about the same. Blue Deck diversity would be about the same. Yes, Twin would (probably) become the next top of the Blue Meta Share. Would it supplant Humans? Probably, because it was the 'pros' deck of choice, and would likely become so again.
We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format.
In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern.
The crux of the issue to us filthy Twin Defenders, is that the pretense was false. The ban failed to accomplish its stated goals and we (you and I) have looked at this and documented it. The ban failed to accomplish its stated goals.
Rant inside. If you hate Twin, you wont care, if you want a laugh, go for it.
People will argue the format is better. Those are, just as my views are, BIASED ARGUMENTS. People dont want to fear tapping out? I dont want to have a 4/4 come down on Turn 2 and take the best card from my hand. I dont want to see 12+ power on the table on Turn 3, all of it either blanking basic removal, or being recursive. I dont want a deck getting a 'you cannot lose this turn' drawing its deck, and throwing lands at a spell on the stack (just kidding, its hilarious!) and I dont want Guide, Guide + Bolt, Eidolon, Lava Spike making my single removal spell looking like a joke.
JUST KIDDING!! Thats Modern! You could be DEAD, Turn 2 thanks to Cherri0s. You could, even be dead turn 1 thanks to Griseldaddy, and if you didnt kill the reducer on Turn 2, and you let Storm Untap? Odds are GREAT, that you are dead.
So no, I will not accept people didnt like Twin. There are several decks I absolutely feel sick, physically, playing against. I dont want to play them. I dont want them to succeed, and I get spitefully petulant when I BEAT them, let alone losing to them and guess what?! They are all variants of the deck that was allowed to live, when MY DECK was killed. I could never see another idiotically designed Eldrazi for the rest of my time playing this game and I would still think back on how much I hate every.single.thing about those cards from their pushed rate, their breaking of the colour pie, their cost reductions, and the fact Forsythe let them live to sell ******* packs out of a bad ******* set WHILE TWIN DIED. Oh and btw if 'I dont like playing against it' gets decks banned, Tron would have been killed off forever ago, because the hate for that deck is so pervasive its a meme now.
So what you say? Whats the argument to get Twin unbanned?
THERE ISNT ONE. Just like there wasnt one for Grave Troll, because Dredge is just one more stupid deck out of all of the stupid decks of which Twin was once a part but for some god forsaken reason Wizards decided that Dredge got to live on, while Twin had to die. Amulet lives on, while Twin had to die.
If ban's actually killed other decks, those people would probably care too!
I honestly don't see much in the way of Hollow One placing; all of my testing with the "solved" decklist that everyone uses has been very underwhelming. Not enough interaction, too much durdling with trying to get free Hollow Ones instead of curving out and burning your opponent down.
The random aspect is what made me not build the deck. Removed the hollow ones, flame blades from my SCG cart when realized the lottery aspect.
Burning Inquiry is my most hated card in all of Modern. I can't count how many times I've been in a very favorable position against that deck only to lose after they cast it and I dump all my threats and am left with nothing but lands. It's extremely frustrating. Of course there's an equal amount of times when my bad or below average hand becomes above average or great after it resolves, but it's how high variance it is that's so unappealing.
Played often against and it never happened...sometimes my Hand was better after inquiry. P.S twin bla, twin ban failed bla bla, need to say 537 again twin ban failed bla bla...why you guys not stop this SH..?! WHY you repeat again and again?
By the way twin ban failed and tomorrow i need to repeat this again...and again for the next 3 years...dont forget it failed.... Next Week i will tell a story why twin should be unbanned and why banning twin failed Infraction issued for trolling. --CavalryWolfPack
Played often against and it never happened...sometimes my Hand was better after inquiry. P.S twin bla, twin ban failed bla bla, need to say 537 again twin ban failed bla bla...why you guys not stop this SH..?! WHY you repeat again and again?
I named about 6 removal spells and you picked terminate and dreadbore.. which were both in the top deck a few weeks ago (mardu) and still at time played in jund.
Fatal push is all over the place main board. Almost all of the counterspells you listed are sideboard or unplayable. Btw heroes downfall was played for quite some time after it was printed in theros by BGx decks. how are you gonna name silimgars scorn of all cards? That has quite literally never seen the light of day in modern.
Lets not even mention the other trash tier spells youre naming. In the last 5 years name a counterspell that has seen as much main deck play as fatal push, how about abrupt decay? How about terminate and dreadbore? The closest youll get to is stubborn denial and thats in one deck only.
You cant name any. None exist. No playable counterspells have been printed in forever. They simply print cancel variants which is exactly what neglect is. They choose the lazy, non creative, unplayable design and keep picking it over and over and over again. Where as removal gets creative designs that are both powerful and playable in modern. Murderous cut was immediately played in modern, as was dreadbore, fatal push, abrupt decay, and now assassins trophy is almost at 40$.
Playable sweepers since verdict? Anger of the Gods was picked up immediately in modern, settle the wreckage saw play instantly in jeskai control, bontus has not seen any play from what ive seen. There is another one im missing.
But that proves my point further even sweepers have seen a great deal of play.
So no its not across the board.
Manlands have been weak Ill give you that and I was going to compare the neglect of good counterspells to the neglect of designing manlands.
But even still theres a great deal of manlands all over modern not just colonnade there blinkmoth in affinity variants and infect, mutavault in eldrazi aggro and merfolk, raging ravine in jund, tree top village in mono green stompy, abzan and jund.
And thats not even the only lands to look at we then have other utility lands like field of ruin and the other gy hate one played in amulet titan.
Even lands are getting more main deck playable designs than counterspells.
So I think youre wrong and my evidence here proves it quite well. That modern playable, powerful, main deckable counterspells have been neglected for some time.
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Modern RUAffinityUR GMono Green StompyG CEldrazi TronC URWJeskai GeistWRU WRBoros BurnRW BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
Please unban twin it would only justify my torpor orb even more and in fact make it an even more powerful sideboard tool that can be used for a deck other then humans.
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Modern RUAffinityUR GMono Green StompyG CEldrazi TronC URWJeskai GeistWRU WRBoros BurnRW BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
Well its more because manlands come up more rarely ie they are primarly a Zendikar thing...nothing limits the printing of counterspells at all. So WOTC has far more chances to print some good Counterspells and they refuse to all the time.
Raises the question though would a Fatal Counter be too overpowered for Modern.
U: Counter Target Spell CMC 2 or Less
Revolt: Permanent leaves counter spell CMC 4 or less instead...
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This is exactly how I felt theoretically about the matchup. But since it's just my theory and not founded on any testing, I am unsure.
I am guessing that the statistics that showed Humans to be favored in the matchup is probably just a small sample size and shows the abundant variance of Modern. I'm assuming that if 1,000s of matches were recorded with pilots of equal play skill, then UW may approach the 55% win rate vs. Humans? (hypothetical question unless someone here HAS done that many)
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)You should read the article by mtgsalvation user shmanka about Jund Shadow. He had me convinced, although obviously I'd have to do some testing too (let's say he convinced me to test).
http://www.mtgcanada.com/modern/playing-jund-shadow-not-grixis/
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)I never thought I would see the day where people are citing decks that go against wotc's stated goals of the format as a reason to keep twin banned but here we are. I personally found it much easy and much more enjoyable to brew with twin in the format. It was something you had to account for but so is any deck that sees competitive play. Its worth mentioning that these unfair brews were bad with twin and bad without twin in the format.
The twin ban is the most controversial ban in all of magic and the deck had a large following of players. I'm not arguing for its ban or unban but it makes sense that discussions around it keep popping up.
I would love to discuss a gsz unban though as I believe it is the most unbannable card on the ban list and the card gets a unwarranted bad rap. The card has never been dominate in any format and was banned early on in modern when the format was incredibly turbulent and doesn't even resemble current modern. To me cards that were banned in 2011 are in the same camp as cards that were never legal in the format. During its brief stint in modern gsz saw most of its play in zoo and 12 post, neither are part of the modern meta game anymore. Its worth noting that pod decks were around back then and opted to play chord over gsz. The reason the DCI gave for banning gsz was to increase diversity among green decks. In my opinion this has failed, as the green decks we have now are mostly company decks and scapeshift. It is hard to gauge the effect the ban has had due to the card being banned so early in the format so we just dont know if it had any impact on diversity of green decks. Green decks particularly green creature decks of the fair variety, decks were gsz sees most or would see most of its play (think gw value town, zoo, little kid abzan ) are struggling or have been completely pushed out of the format. Gsz also has a bunch of competition now so unbanning it could increase diversity among green decks. if you want to combo with creatures chord, eldritch evolution and summoners pact are all better options. Yes gsz is good turn 1 with dryad arbor, yes its good midgame, yes its good late game but cards being good at various stages of the game isn't a reason to ban or keep cards banned. I mean by that logic opt could be banned. Ask yourself when have green creature decks ever been too good or even just good in any non rotating format the ones that comes to mind was 2012 legacy maverick where it was just a good deck and pod decks in modern but i think we can all agree that pod was the issue there.
They don't reliably kill before Turn 4, so I don't really see the issue. Grishoalbrand can kill Turn 1, no issues according to WotC, so...
Wow, I really didn't mean to make this a personal thing, id. Apologies for creating this kind of frustration; let's just say I was dead wrong about Jace, and I could be completely wrong here. I'll be the first to admit that my own bias is obviously the crux of the argument, not the "Health of the Format."
Ah, sorry I probably deleted my post last night as you were quoting it. I thought people might be offended by the WW2 joke.
Well, I'm at least glad you are don't hate people playing BGx.
From memory, I think someone mentioned years ago that Twin got banned to allow the new Eldrazi to enter Modern. People were trying out clunky decks that tried to use Blight Herder and other large eldrazi from Battle of Zendikar. Then Oath of Gate watch came with TKS and Smasher to make Eldrazi decks almost unstoppable - they only calmed down after eye got banned. Well, the eldrazi suffered a ban too.. although not enough to nuke them from orbit.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Anyway, its a Modern double header this weekend, GP Stockholm, and SCGames Open are both Modern. I dont predict much of a shake up right now, I dont think anyone kicks down Tron/KCI/UW/Humans/Hollow One until the next set is released.
Spirits
Tron, UW, and Humans are my big 3.
Spirits
Humans matchup is ROUGH, though.
Spirits
The random aspect is what made me not build the deck. Removed the hollow ones, flame blades from my SCG cart when realized the lottery aspect.
However, I guess the results indicate that Hollow One is really a strong deck.. consistent enough to do well in tournaments.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
These all may be true statements. Unfortunately, this has never been the rationale Wizards uses to unban a card. They simply re-analyze old ban rationale in light of the current metagame and decide as to whether or not an unban will benefit or harm net diversity. No Twin defender to my knowledge has successfully argued in any objective way that a Twin ban will benefit diversity. The evidence suggests it will probably have a net neutral effect, rendering some decks worse and others better. Wizards has never unbanned that kind of card before. They have solely unbanned cards to help out struggling archetypes. If I've missed some of those objective, pro-Twin arguments, I apologize for doing so and would love to see them. Until that's accomplished, I don't know why we keep revisiting it with the same old tired rhetorical approaches. It's doubly problematic because many Twin defenders are, often by their own admission, too personally invested in the argument to make objective cases. This just drives more people away from supporting Twin, even if the Twin defenders may have an argument they could make which would garner more support.
I have dramatically increased N on that sample by adding SCG Opens. That matchup N is now 70 (the overall match N is 20,000), and the new percentage is 49.3% in favor of Humans. I have an even bigger N for the Jeskai vs. Humans matchup at about 90, and that matchup is 54.7% in Jeskai's favor.
I think Jund remains very strong and proactive, but also think we will see a significant amount of Abzan due to the power of Stony Silence. Maindeck Trophy really allows you to go all-in on backbreaing white-based SB hate for key bad matchups, and Abzan does that much better than Jund. But I do think Jund will see comparatively more play, just because it's a more obvious adoption.
This is not how the T4 rule works. It has never been how it works. The rule states that TOP-TIER decks cannot CONSISTENTLY win before T4. Notably, this is modeled on what Wizards calls the T3 rule in Legacy, in which TOP-TIER decks cannot CONSISTENTLY win before T3. In both formats, there are decks that are capable of winning before T4 and T3 respectively. But neither of those formats see decks do so consistently or in the top-tier. There is no inconsistency in how Wizards enforces this rule if one actually reads the rule and then critically analyzes deck performance.
H1 is not a random deck and it is a good deck. Anecdotally, I can confirm this from my own experience and the success of Mike Sigrist and Owen Turtenwald on the archetype: these players do not mess around with bad decks, especially Sigrist. Quantitatively, the deck sees too much high-level play to be bad. I will say that it's not the best deck in Modern: in my matchup sample, H1 has an MWP of 49.8% with 472 matches recorded. But that's about even with Burn, GDS, Jeskai Control, Bogles, and Infect.
It will not be a benefit, at best it will be a net neutral, as just like with UW's rise, we saw UWR's fall, we would see the same cannibalization of meta share out of the 'Blue Control' pool.
(Source: MTGGoldfish)
UW - 6.2%
Bant Spirits - 3.27%
GDS - 2.59%
UWR - 1.92%
UR Wizards - 1.47%
Blue Moon - 1.35%
These all would see their share fall. Blue Moon would disappear completely (I would think) and would be the basis for the new UR Twin meta Share. That say's nothing of the actual spikes (I'm not one) who are currently on Humans, or Mardu, or Hollow One, or Tron, who would jump to what was once the 'best deck' similar to how UW is the 'best deck' now.
In the end though, as we have shown, Top 8 Diversity would be about the same. Blue Deck diversity would be about the same. Yes, Twin would (probably) become the next top of the Blue Meta Share. Would it supplant Humans? Probably, because it was the 'pros' deck of choice, and would likely become so again.
The crux of the issue to us filthy Twin Defenders, is that the pretense was false. The ban failed to accomplish its stated goals and we (you and I) have looked at this and documented it. The ban failed to accomplish its stated goals.
Rant inside. If you hate Twin, you wont care, if you want a laugh, go for it.
People will argue the format is better. Those are, just as my views are, BIASED ARGUMENTS. People dont want to fear tapping out? I dont want to have a 4/4 come down on Turn 2 and take the best card from my hand. I dont want to see 12+ power on the table on Turn 3, all of it either blanking basic removal, or being recursive. I dont want a deck getting a 'you cannot lose this turn' drawing its deck, and throwing lands at a spell on the stack (just kidding, its hilarious!) and I dont want Guide, Guide + Bolt, Eidolon, Lava Spike making my single removal spell looking like a joke.
JUST KIDDING!! Thats Modern! You could be DEAD, Turn 2 thanks to Cherri0s. You could, even be dead turn 1 thanks to Griseldaddy, and if you didnt kill the reducer on Turn 2, and you let Storm Untap? Odds are GREAT, that you are dead.
So no, I will not accept people didnt like Twin. There are several decks I absolutely feel sick, physically, playing against. I dont want to play them. I dont want them to succeed, and I get spitefully petulant when I BEAT them, let alone losing to them and guess what?! They are all variants of the deck that was allowed to live, when MY DECK was killed. I could never see another idiotically designed Eldrazi for the rest of my time playing this game and I would still think back on how much I hate every.single.thing about those cards from their pushed rate, their breaking of the colour pie, their cost reductions, and the fact Forsythe let them live to sell ******* packs out of a bad ******* set WHILE TWIN DIED. Oh and btw if 'I dont like playing against it' gets decks banned, Tron would have been killed off forever ago, because the hate for that deck is so pervasive its a meme now.
So what you say? Whats the argument to get Twin unbanned?
THERE ISNT ONE. Just like there wasnt one for Grave Troll, because Dredge is just one more stupid deck out of all of the stupid decks of which Twin was once a part but for some god forsaken reason Wizards decided that Dredge got to live on, while Twin had to die. Amulet lives on, while Twin had to die.
If ban's actually killed other decks, those people would probably care too!
Spirits
Infraction issued for trolling. --CavalryWolfPack
Because its still banned. Any other questions?
Spirits
Fatal push is all over the place main board. Almost all of the counterspells you listed are sideboard or unplayable. Btw heroes downfall was played for quite some time after it was printed in theros by BGx decks. how are you gonna name silimgars scorn of all cards? That has quite literally never seen the light of day in modern.
Lets not even mention the other trash tier spells youre naming. In the last 5 years name a counterspell that has seen as much main deck play as fatal push, how about abrupt decay? How about terminate and dreadbore? The closest youll get to is stubborn denial and thats in one deck only.
You cant name any. None exist. No playable counterspells have been printed in forever. They simply print cancel variants which is exactly what neglect is. They choose the lazy, non creative, unplayable design and keep picking it over and over and over again. Where as removal gets creative designs that are both powerful and playable in modern. Murderous cut was immediately played in modern, as was dreadbore, fatal push, abrupt decay, and now assassins trophy is almost at 40$.
Playable sweepers since verdict? Anger of the Gods was picked up immediately in modern, settle the wreckage saw play instantly in jeskai control, bontus has not seen any play from what ive seen. There is another one im missing.
But that proves my point further even sweepers have seen a great deal of play.
So no its not across the board.
Manlands have been weak Ill give you that and I was going to compare the neglect of good counterspells to the neglect of designing manlands.
But even still theres a great deal of manlands all over modern not just colonnade there blinkmoth in affinity variants and infect, mutavault in eldrazi aggro and merfolk, raging ravine in jund, tree top village in mono green stompy, abzan and jund.
And thats not even the only lands to look at we then have other utility lands like field of ruin and the other gy hate one played in amulet titan.
Even lands are getting more main deck playable designs than counterspells.
So I think youre wrong and my evidence here proves it quite well. That modern playable, powerful, main deckable counterspells have been neglected for some time.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
Raises the question though would a Fatal Counter be too overpowered for Modern.
U: Counter Target Spell CMC 2 or Less
Revolt: Permanent leaves counter spell CMC 4 or less instead...